“Ok.” I looked down and calculated. I recognized the name of the road he lived on, and I didn’t think it would take me too long to get there. But, of course, there was a major problem…
“Is there a problem?” Frank Pauley asked me. “We’re in full crisis mode, Emily. Everyone needs to step up for the team.”
I immediately shook my head. “Oh, there’s no problem!” I told him. “I’m definitely stepping up for the team.” I nodded at the address. “I’ll go find this guy and bring him back here. Teddy Hayes, I’ll get him for you. No problem, Mr.…” When I had met him at the party to honor my dad, he had been “Frank,” but now, he was definitely my higher-up at my job. I wasn’t sure what to call him, so I compromised. “I’ll get him, Mr. Frank Pauley.”
“Great,” he told me. We waited for a second. “This is time-sensitive, so…”
“Is Davis ok? Is Davis Blake ok? Do you know anything about his injury?” I blurted out, unable to contain my anxiety any longer.
“I don’t have any new information. Your father is probably more aware of the details than I am. Find Teddy Hayes, get him here. Please.” The phone rang on his desk and he reached to pick it up. Soon he was involved in a harried conversation, and he turned his back to me.
“I’ll just go,” I said, and backed out of the office. The hallway was empty again, but I could hear some voices of other people at work.
Son of a biscuit. This was bad as my second day here, when someone in the employee lounge had pointed at me and said, “How about her?” He had handed me a piece of paper with about twenty food orders on it, and a wad of cash to pay for them. “We all decided on Moe’s for lunch,” the man had told me.
“Oh, me? You want me to get the lunches?” I had asked stupidly, and he looked at me like I was an idiot as he nodded. “Oh, sure,” I had agreed. “Sure, no problem.” And I had ordered up a car on my phone but run out to the main gate to meet it, so that no one I worked with would see that I wasn’t driving myself. That was the way I had gotten the lunches, and I did the same thing the next day when I had to make an emergency run for some kind of iced coffees that were only available in one place but that five or six people immediately needed. I got a car the next day after that for smoothies, and the next day for something else, and again the day after that. My first Woodsmen paycheck had generally gone to the cars I was taking to supply the other employees with food and treats.
But I was going to have to drive myself today. For one thing, I didn’t want to pick up the new Woodsmen quarterback in a rideshare. And for another, if I took my father’s car, then he wouldn’t be able to forget me at the stadium. “Daddy, can I borrow your car?” I texted to him, and thought carefully before I continued, “I’ve been asked to track down the new backup QB ASAP.” I was happy at how important it made me sound—this was an urgent job for the organization, one that only I was able to complete. He might even have been impressed, and I waited to see how he would respond.
“Keys will be with Lyle. Don’t do anything to the car.”
I read the answer again, deciding that if I looked between the texted lines, I could interpret his answer as that he was secretly proud. He was glad that the Woodsmen executives had trusted me with the job of finding this Teddy Hayes. At least, my dad hadn’t questioned that I really needed the car, and to me, that was a signal of approval.
I looked again at the address on the sheaf of papers I had in my hand and walked off to find Lyle the security guard to get the keys. This new backup QB didn’t live too far away. I could totally drive there, and I wasn’t going to hurt the car—I wouldn’t even breathe on it. This would be fine.
I picked up my dad’s keyring from a very depressed Lyle, who was still pulling his security duty at the door to the front offices as the very last of the equally depressed fans left Woodsmen Stadium. If the fans were mostly gone, then the roads wouldn’t be that crowded now. This would be totally fine, and I could do it. I walked out into the unwavering summer heat of the asphalt parking lot and over to my father’s big, black, sparkling car. He liked things new and unblemished, and he needed a car with enough space to accommodate his oversized body.
All those things made it bad for me. A small, dirty, dinged-up car would have been perfect; this large, clean, expensive one was way too much pressure. I got in anyway and started it, turning up the air conditioning to Arctic frigid level. It was no use, because I was already fear-sweating. I could feel my hair sticking to my neck and a drip running down in between my breasts. I resolutely moved the seat forward so my feet were in range of the pedals and put it in drive. At least I didn’t have to back up anywhere, which was a skill set that had escaped me in my years behind the wheel. I steered the car toward the executive parking lot exit and carefully made the turn out onto the stadium’s main drag.
Woodsmen Stadium had originally been in the country, and 60 years after it had been built, it was still outside of town. I only got two stoplights before I
