Page 59 of The Cadence
“I am, though. Here.” He handed me the paper napkin that I’d placed on his tray, and I wiped my eyes. I’d also put a dish of cut-up broccoli and carrots on the tray because vegetables were good for you, which was something else I’d learned from my grandma. “What did you think of the game?”
“The defense went to pieces after the third quarter and don’t get me started on the problems with the offense,” I answered immediately, and Will laughed. That made me feel better than any of the words he’d said to console or convince me.
“Did you eat dinner?” he asked.
I thought about coming home from the grocery store after his call, running around like a crazy person, and then leaving again. I didn’t seem to remember eating during that time. “I don’t think so,” I admitted.
“Want half?” He offered a triangle of sandwich and I gratefully took it. “Tell me about your day.”
I hadn’t mentioned anything to him about Cully’s shenanigans next to the loading dock because it felt a little strange to text about that. When I looked at the dinner tray and the little bowl of vegetables, I also remembered the weird customer who found phallic food. “There was a thing about a baguette,” I said, and told him the story. Will agreed that it was very weird and suggested that I call him the next time I saw the guy.
“I can deal with it,” I answered. “Today he ran away when I confronted him and I doubt he’ll be back. But that isn’t the only sex thing happening at the store.” I told him about the loading dock and what was going on there between Cully and Kirsten, and also about the terrible smells, the garbage, and the rodents.
“There are rats?” He shifted his leg and I got nervous. “No, it’s fine.”
“I think the smell would bother me more. Also, a lot of body parts are open to the air when you’re doing that. Who knows what’s floating around back there? Could you catch something? I don’t even like to walk around that area, let alone...”
“Well, I can’t criticize. My own standards for, uh, encounters were lower only a few years ago,” he admitted.
“Really?” I tried to imagine that. It was very, very easy to picture him naked and having sex, but it was harder to think of him doing it somewhere that wasn’t orderly and non-smelly. I had to admit to myself that I would have been ok with some action at the loading dock, as long as that action was with Will.
But then, I thought of him having sex with someone other than me. I thought of the woman in Alabama, the one he’d just seenon his road trip there. She probably had a beautiful bed with silk sheets.
I quickly stood. “Do you want anything else? You should go to bed. Your own, alone, where you have cotton sheets.”
“What?” He looked up at me. “What happened? Did you get disgusted by what I said about my former standards?”
“No,” I answered, and it could have been the moment to ask about Nicia and if he’d seen her on Friday night. But it wasn’t my business! Not at all! I was the person who shared a grilled cheese with him, not the person who should have been included in all sex information, and actually, I didn’t want to know. It would have been pretty awful to hear how they had “seen” each other, even though it was none of my business.
“I’m going to bed myself,” I said. “Do you need help?”
“No, I can do it.” He also stood. “I don’t understand what just happened. Why did you turn red and jump up? I won’t say things like that anymore, ok?”
“You can say whatever you like,” I promised him. “Are you positive that you don’t need me?”
He was, so I went upstairs and reminded myself that your emotions were one thing but your actions were another. I could feel sad and sorry that Will and I weren’t the people having sex next to the loading dock or anywhere else, but I didn’t have to behave like a bitter child. I could do better, and I would.
I decided I would also check on Will a few times that night, as I used to do for my grandma. It had reassured me to know thatshe was still there and ok, until she wasn’t. And those thoughts, along with others, made me get more tissues from the latest multi-pack. We were still buying them in bulk.
It was a relief to go to church the next morning and refocus. Will was getting picked up by one of the trainers and they’d devised a way for him to get his car at the airport—it ended up that he had driven it home himself, which I saw when I arrived back and he was lining it up carefully in the garage. I tried to do the same but I was also in a hurry to question him about how he was and what the Woodsmen doctors had said.
But before I could ask any of that, he was talking to me. “Hello, Calla. Go put on your bathing suit.”
“My what?”
“A bikini, maybe? Something to wear in the water,” he explained. “Don’t you have one?”
I had to think about that, but I was mostly still confused about why he had said it. “What are you talking about?”
He was talking about a beach day, which seemed like a really bad idea for someone with a bum ankle. He hadn’t wanted a rideshare from the airport in order to hide the severity of his injury, and now he was suggesting a public outing?
“Go get your suit,” he urged me again.
“You can’t walk on sand!” I protested. “You wanted to be cagey!”
But he had answers. School had started and the tourist population had fallen off a lot, which meant fewer people staring. We would go to a place that didn’t get many visitorsanyway, and he would use his crutches. The Woodsmen had released a vague statement about his ankle so no one would be surprised by anything.
“It’s not even a bad sprain,” he told me. “I’ll be off it for a few days so I’ll miss the next game because it’s midweek, but then I’ll be back.”
