Chapter Thirty-one
Razor smiled at the purple-haired barista as she ran her credit card through the machine.
She stood off to the side and leaned against the wall to wait for her order, a cardboard poster tube tucked under her arm.
The Edge was quiet for a Sunday afternoon, but a few tables were occupied by people with laptops.
In the corner, they’d added a couple of cushioned chairs for the readers who liked to snuggle up with a good book in public.
To each their own, she thought. She pulled out her phone and leaned the tube against the wall.
A shudder went through her body, compliments of the AC vent over her head.
Outside, the heat and humidity were in full force.
Gone were the days of comfortable spring temperatures that led to easy, cool nights.
Now Jonesboro was on the cusp of summer, when the air was thick.
That’s why she’d brought the tube inside.
She didn’t want to take any chances of its contents being ruined by moisture seeping in and smudging the print.
She eyed the plain cylinder and smiled. She couldn’t wait to show Ashton.
The vent above kicked into high gear, and she moved away from the arctic blast. As she laid the tube on an empty table near the door, a familiar figure in the back corner caught her attention.
Nancy focused on her laptop. Her spikes were in disarray, and she looked so casual, so…normal. She still looked formidable, even though Razor knew it wasn’t the case. Not anymore.
Courtney had announced at the practice the day of Razor’s reinstatement that Nancy had chosen to resign immediately.
She’d felt sadness creep in as she watched her explain to the team how one of their leaders, a person they put their faith in and had been there from the beginning, just up and left.
She was certain Courtney had created an elaborate explanation, but in the end, it wasn’t necessary.
There seemed to be a general consensus that Nancy had checked out as a coach, and any loyalty to her had vanished due to her unwillingness to mentor those who respected her.
Even Summer, Nancy’s biggest defender at the start of the season, looked relieved.
Razor felt her own sense of relief, knowing Summer could let go of any residual guilt and be totally and fully happy.
She wished she could be so lucky.
After practice, Razor had met with Courtney. After hearing the truth of what Nancy had done to her at San Diego State, Razor didn’t feel relieved Nancy was gone, she felt cheated. Cheated out of answers to why Nancy led such a nasty campaign to ruin her life.
Luckily, she had a series to focus on and took out her frustrations on the field and propelled her team to another significant series win to keep them in contention for postseason.
Seeing Nancy in the corner now, five days removed from the revelations, it looked like Razor wouldn’t get cheated after all.
Razor took a deep breath and walked over.
The floorboards creaked with every step, groaning loud enough to announce her arrival, but Nancy refused to acknowledge her.
Razor set the tube on the table, intentionally passing it through Nancy’s peripheral vision.
When Nancy finally looked up, she didn’t look formidable anymore. She looked defeated.
“Don’t hover, Razor. Sit down or go away.”
The chair scraped loudly across the floor as Razor settled in. She stared at Nancy until she closed the laptop and gave Razor her undivided attention.
“If you have something to say, say it.”
Razor leaned her elbows on the table. “I want to know why.”
“Why what?”
“Why did you try to get rid of me? What did I do to deserve that?”
Nancy’s gaze burned into her. “You know what you did.”
“I honestly don’t. You were my coach. I trusted you, and you fed me to the wolves.”
“The summer after we won the championship, Geoff Carson announced he was going to retire as head coach.”
“I remember,” Razor confirmed. Geoff had been her first coach at San Diego State. He was a great man, and it had saddened Razor to see him leave so soon after she’d arrived.
“What a lot of people didn’t know was he was going to name me his successor. At least, that was the plan. There was going to be a big press conference, and he was going to hand the reins to me. But that never happened.”
Razor closed her eyes. Now she knew what Nancy was talking about.
Geoff had called her into his office right before he’d made the official announcement to the team.
He wanted Razor’s honest opinion. By then, rumors of his retirement had made their way through the locker room, as well as his plan to promote Nancy.
She remembered the worried and fearful looks on her teammates’ faces at the idea of having Nancy as their head coach. So, she’d been honest.
“I never told Geoff not to hire you.”
“Oh, please,” Nancy scoffed. “Geoff wouldn’t have asked for your opinion if he wasn’t planning to take your advice.”
“I was just a kid, Nancy. Who listens to a kid?”
“Someone who respects said kid because they see how much potential they have. That’s why he didn’t hire me. And that’s why we got Malcom Newman.”
“I’m sorry you feel I’m responsible for Geoff not hiring you,” Razor whispered, “but you were obsessed with winning. Keeping us late after practice. Threatening our scholarships and roster spots if we didn’t perform to your standards.”
“It’s how coaching is done. At least it was. Nowadays, you can’t even critique a player without thinking about their mental state,” Nancy said. “My methods got results. We won the championship because of them.”
“No,” Razor countered, “Geoff won us the championship. He understood softball was a game, not a job. He understood the importance of downtime, recovery. You had us playing through injuries. You may blame me for Geoff’s decision, but I guarantee there were others who felt the same.”
“You were the only one who complained.”
“Really?” Razor leaned on the table again. “There were thirteen players considering transfers if you were made head coach. Know how I know that?” Nancy shook her head. “Because all thirteen went and talked to Geoff. I wasn’t the only one.”
Nancy looked away.
“We all told Geoff what you were doing. You may have only heard me, and you may blame me for his decision, but none of us wanted to stand by and watch his legacy get dismantled by you.”
“Well, he took your advice,” Nancy said sarcastically.
“And you decided to get revenge against me.”
Nancy sniffed and wiped away a tear. “Believe it or not, that was never my intent. Yes, I was angry, and I took it out on you in other ways. Riding your ass in practice, reprimanding you when you made the slightest error. But you took all of it. All the punishment. There was a point where I no longer hated you. I admired you for standing up for yourself and your team.”
Razor’s mind churned and came back to her original question. “Then why?”
Nancy looked at the ceiling and rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “Why didn’t you just let it go? If you’d let it go, none of this would’ve happened.”
“I don’t quit, remember?”
Nancy gazed at her again, her eyes red.
“After you told me what Gary did, I immediately went to Malcolm. He told me to keep my mouth shut. Said if I helped him, he would put in a good word for me to be named head coach when he stepped down.”
Razor seethed. “You protected a predator so you could finally be head coach. Tell me, did Malcolm keep his word?”
Nancy shook her head. “After you left, Haley transferred out. The next season more players came forward and said Gary made sexual advances at them. The administration realized they’d made a mistake by not believing you, so they cleaned house. Terminated the entire softball staff.”
“Wow,” Razor whispered. “After all that, you ended up with nothing.”
“You know we ended up with that predator because of your recommendation to Geoff. You’re partially to blame for this.”
Razor shook her head and sighed at Nancy’s last gasp of fight.
“You can’t blame me for Gary Newman. If Malcolm or any university had put their players before the program, he would’ve been in jail long before he came to San Diego State. You had a chance to stop it. But you looked away, like all the others.”
Razor saw the barista signal her order was ready.
She grabbed the poster tube and gave one final parting shot.
“I’m sorry you think I took away your dream, but what you did is unforgivable.
You allowed a predator to continue unchecked for years.
You’re going to have to live with that for the rest of your life. ”
She grabbed her coffee tray and sandwich bag off the counter, then walked out into the bright sunshine without a backward glance. She breathed deep and exhaled all the tension. As she hopped into her truck, she vowed never to give Nancy Inglewood another thought.
* * *
Ashton settled against the couch and opened the Kindle app on her iPad.
The air conditioner hummed quietly in the background, and she contemplated opening the French doors and the windows when the sun went down to save on electricity, maybe even fire up the grill.
For now, she was content to relax and finish the book she’d started over a month ago.
Usually Sunday was the day for chores, grading assignments, and catching up on research for her dissertation.
Not today, though. She’d earned a day of relaxation.
School officially broke on Thursday, she’d turned in the students’ final grades Friday morning, and the series against the Bears went as well as expected.
She laughed, remembering how Razor went out like a player possessed, hitting two home runs and racking up six RBIs, not to mention helping Summer to two shutouts.
They won the series two games to one, which meant they had to sweep the defending champions, the Dragons, next weekend to reach the postseason.
But the team was confident, and they’d all earned a little downtime.