Page 23 of The Fundamentals

“It’s one of the team’s senior directors, a vice-president or something. We don’t deal with him very much, unless somebody does something bad. He sat in on the meetings last year when a few of the girls partied with the players and got reprimanded for it.”

“How were they punished?”

“They weren’t supposed to talk about it, but I heard that they had their pay docked. The Woodsmen didn’t, though. The rumor was that your head coach reminded the guys to stay out of situations with the cheerleaders, but they didn’t get fined. They were equally at fault because they could have left that party, too.” I yawned again and put my leg up on the couch to rub it.

“That’s still bothering you,” Bowie said, his eyes on my foot.

“No, it’s good. I don’t think I’m going to be able to do any hip hop right now, though.”

“I think the admiring crowds can wait for another day.”

“Admiring crowds?”

“Well, I’m betting that after you teach me a few things, I’ll attract them,” he explained, then laughed.

I heard the noise of a car and sat up expectantly, but it rumbled past to my neighbor Mieke’s house.

“Are you expecting someone?”

“I’m hoping my dad will come home soon,” I explained. “He went out and I don’t know where he is.” Bowie only nodded, but I felt like I had to explain. I understood that it was weird for a daughter to keep tabs on her father like I tried to. “He had a drinking problem. I guess he still has it.” I sighed. “I don’t want him on the roads because I can’t trust him to make good decisions.”

“You mean decisions like he might get drunk and still get behind the wheel.”

“Yes, exactly like that.” I sounded snippy, but this wasn’t Bowie’s fault. It also wasn’t his fault that I felt so tired. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” he asked. “You’re worried.”

“I am.” I sighed again. “I really am. He got into an accident the week after the wedding. I had taken his keys, but he found my extra set and he drove my car and nearly totaled it. He got hurt and couldn’t work and money got so tight. I finally managed to get the car repaired but we can’t afford to do that again. And I kept thinking, what if that tree had been another car? Or a person on a bike, or a pedestrian? He would have hit them, too. But he was upset about the wedding and now that it’s over, maybe…” It was only wishful thinking that he would suddenly quit drinking, but it was thinking I’d engaged in for as long as I could remember.

“Why was he upset about the wedding? Bill’s great,” Bowie said.

“I know that and I like him a lot. My dad was worried that their marriage would hold Aubin back somehow, because he thinks that she can go so far. He was afraid it would separate the two of them even more, too. He really loves her but they fight all the time. Now, she’ll have her own family and she’ll need him even less. She won’t have kids, of course—” I stopped myself again. That was a secret that I had found out through the other bridesmaids, one that I wasn’t supposed to know and certainly shouldn’t have shared. “Aubin reminds him a lot of my mom and he doesn’t want to lose them both,” I concluded, and that was all I wanted to say about the subject, so I changed it.

“I heard the woman getting her jersey autographed today saying that her son is sick,” I mentioned. “Is he going to be ok?”

Bowie told me more and I asked him other questions about how his Fan Day had gone. He didn’t mention seeing Ward touching me and grabbing my breast, which I was glad about, and he didn’t try to bring the conversation back around to my dad’s drinking problem. After a while, I asked if he was hungry and we moved to the kitchen to make something. He didn’t seem to be much of a cook and our options were limited, anyway, since our refrigerator was fairly empty. I did pull together some pasta with sauce I’d made weeks before and frozen, saved for a special occasion. Although Bowie told me that he wasn’t very hungry, he did eat almost an entire package of the noodles and said it was delicious. He helped with the dishes, too, and then we moved back to the couch that had never seemed undersized until now.

I tried to keep the conversation going like the last time he’d been over, because it had been fun. Yes, it was just talking and eating, but it had been an enjoyable time for me and I thought maybe it had been for him, too. But right now, my foot was bothering me enough to make me worried and my dad was still gone. I was running through various scenes of car destruction and injuries when Bowie said my name, maybe more than once to get my attention.

“I think I’ll head home,” he told me when I finally snapped to. “You don’t need me here bothering you.”

“You’re not!” I said, and that was true. I usually worried alone; it was nice to have someone else here with me, even if I wasn’t sharing my thoughts about crashes and flashing police lights. “I know I’m not being a very good host.”

“You didn’t expect to host,” he reminded me. “You nearly fainted when you walked out here.” He tilted his head a little, looking at me.

“What?”

“Your hair was so wet before that it looked black, but it isn’t. When the light catches it, I can see red.”

“I have red hair? No, it’s brown.”

“It’s dark but there’s a little bit of a ruby color in it, like that expensive wood. I don’t know the name of it,” he explained.

My fingers were trying to smooth the straight pieces, to ease out tangles. I still hadn’t even brushed it. “I think it’s a mess right now. I should do a ponytail, like you.”

“This is a bet,” he said, tugging on the short length of hair. “I broke up with my girlfriend last fall and a few of the guys thought we’d get back together. I said we wouldn’t, and I told them they could shave me bald if we did. They wanted me to grow out my hair so they’d have more to hack off and laugh at.” He laughed, too, so that didn’t seem to worry him.

“Why did you break up with your girlfriend?”

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