Chapter 6 Wren Get on the Jumbotron at a Ravens Game
Wren: Get on the Jumbotron at a Ravens Game
A few days later, they sat in the bland waiting room with opposing levels of patience. All the calming wall colors and Brookstone trickling desk fountains in the world couldn’t stop Wren’s leg from bouncing anxiously.
Arthur wore shorts, sensible sneakers, and a subtle purple shirt.
Wren, to his left, wore a full Baltimore Ravens jersey with purple and gold beaded necklaces, full eye black, and tassels in her hair.
A concerned-looking couple slunk through the waiting room and toward the exit, having just come from their own visit.
Wren nodded solemnly to them, looking absolutely absurd in the process.
“You’re sure we can’t skip just this one?” Wren whispered to Arthur. “We’ve been waiting forever and we’re missing the tailgate.” She checked an imaginary watch on her wrist.
“Don’t you have to know someone and be invited to a tailgate? You don’t just show up to a magical free buffet of wings and dips…do you?”
“Uh, that’s exactly what used to happen when I’d go with Charlie. People would offer us food, beers, shots. It was epic.”
“Oh, right. Of course they did.” Charlie and Wren used to go together a few times a season.
They never had tickets, but they’d also never needed them to hang out in the parking lots and be showered with free food and drink.
Apparently when you look like Wren you can just walk around and be a welcome addition to anyone’s party.
It was not a phenomenon that Arthur had ever personally experienced.
Come to think of it, though, Arthur couldn’t remember the girls tailgating at all last season.
Their schedules seemed to get harder and harder to line up.
“Well, anyway, sorry in advance if I slow you down. I give you permission to abandon me if someone’s smoking a pig. ”
“It doesn’t matter. I just want to get down there to soak in the atmosphere,” she said, leg bouncing impatiently again.
“It’s just an August preseason game. Even I know that the game is meaningless. And it doesn’t start for six hours; we’re fine.”
The fact that the game was an exhibition, would have no impact on the standings, and would feature all the teams’ biggest stars hanging out in sweatpants on the sideline was the only reason last-minute tickets had been available and somewhat affordable.
“Ugh, preseason. Don’t remind me. But fine—we’ll stay for the appointment.”
Another minute ticked by. Truth be told, Arthur was anxious, too.
He always was leading up to these increasingly regular appointments.
Though the pregnancy had been uneventful so far, there was always the chance that things could change.
A “bad scan” could happen at any time, really.
In fact, some of the worst things were the ones that showed up late in the game like this.
He knew that much from late-night doomscrolling when he couldn’t sleep, reading about all the worst-case scenarios.
Of particular interest when he felt like torturing himself was imagining things going wrong and all of it being his fault.
Yes, that was definitely on his brain’s greatest-hits playlist. He’d watched more Instagram reels than he cared to admit about groundbreaking research into “low-quality” sperm and how it could negatively affect the baby or even raise the chances of a miscarriage, and he couldn’t help but wonder.
He’d had his fair share of booze and weed in college and exercised about as often as Halley’s Comet came around.
And then there were times when his diet leaned far too heavily on cheap ramen out of a styrofoam cup—it was delicious and helped keep the grocery budget in check but packed enough sodium and preservatives that Arthur sometimes worried he was being mummified from the inside out.
Surely the habit wasn’t good for his swimmers.
He’d managed to get this far, but would these things eventually all come back to haunt him?
“Wren Morris?” a nurse called.
“I’ll go out on a limb and say you’re going to the game tonight?”
Wren’s OB, a gray-haired woman who was close to retirement and had seen absolutely everything in the entire known medical world, sat on a stool and took notes on a clipboard as they wrapped up the visit.
“Hell yeah. Ravens–Commanders. Battle of the Beltway. Primetime football, baby.”
The woman said nothing. “It’s my first game,” Wren added. “Sort of a bucket-list thing. We’re excited.”
“I bet they’ll score a lot of goals for you,” Dr. Abadi said. Arthur imagined the woman knew absolutely nothing about American football and was quite content to keep it that way. “I hope you have fun.”
“Thank you.”
“But not too much fun.”
Something about her tone of voice threw a pit into Arthur’s stomach.
Before he knew it, Wren, usually so jokey and playful during these visits, reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing it like she was trying to wring water out of it.
Wren shifted on the table, crinkling the thin medical paper underneath her.
The doctor sensed their unease immediately.
“Everything’s fine,” she cautioned. “The baby’s growing beautifully. But your blood pressure is a little higher than I’d like. Nothing to be alarmed about, just…take it easy.”
“Are you putting me on bed rest?” Wren asked, exhaling just a bit.
Arthur could see the slightest bit of moisture welling up behind her eyes, though.
Being told she had to restrict all activity would be absolutely gutting.
The poor woman was still coming to terms with the fact that pregnant people couldn’t go high-altitude climbing.
“No, nothing like that. I’d just like you to try to relax. Avoid stressful situations if you can. Have you been walking like I told you?”
“Sure have. To the fridge, right?” Wren wheezed and held out a hand for a low five.
Dr. Abadi stared at it, then reluctantly caved, giving it a polite slap.
“But yes. Walking as much as I’m able.” Arthur said nothing, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the bucket list. What kinds of death-defying, high-adrenaline adventures were waiting for them inside that jar?
If his pathetic sperm didn’t ruin everything, maybe the pursuit of this bucket list would.
“Good. Keep it up. Thirty-six weeks means you’re almost there, OK? I’ll see you next week, and remember”—she put her hands out, fingers and thumbs looped into a circle like a meditating yogi—“calm.”
“YOU WIMPS ARE GOING DOWN!” Wren screamed. They were riding the rickety light rail down toward the stadium and she’d caught the eye of a few Commanders fans from across the train car. “YOU’RE IN RAVENS COUNTRY NOW. WE RUN THIS TOWN! WE RUN THIS WHOLE…GENERAL METRO AREA!”
One of the men, an older gentleman with glasses, just trying to enjoy a nice evening out on the town, take in a ball game with his young son, looked at her confused. Please, it’s just a preseason game, his eyes seemed to plead. Arthur pulled Wren closer to him as if to physically restrain her.
“Can we take it easy? People are staring at us.”
“It’s football, Arthur. Trash talk is part of the game. If this is going to be our first and last time going to a game—because, let’s face it, I’m not bringing a child into the Thunderdome—I want the full experience.”
“And what’s that?”
“Eating too many hot dogs and deep-fried desserts, for one. And I’ve always had this fantasy of talking a little too much shit to a rival fan. And since he can’t beat me up, he takes out his anger on my boyfriend and the video goes viral.”
“That’s hot that you fantasize about me.”
A random memory surfaced in his brain. His parents had taken him to a football game—one of the very first Ravens’ seasons in Baltimore—and a drunk fan in the row behind them had been shouting obscene language the entire time.
Some bad words that Arthur didn’t really remember, but also some gross jeering at the cheerleaders, which Arthur did.
His dad turned around and asked the guy politely to tone it down, words were exchanged, and the guy threw a punch.
Arthur vividly remembered dropping the soda he had begged his parents for and smearing ketchup all over his shirt trying not to drop his hot dog.
There was a brief fracas and before he knew it the rowdy fan was tumbling down the stadium stairs like a rolled-up carpet while his father calmly ushered Arthur and his mom away.
Arthur still related more to the scared little boy than to his father in the story.
“And of course,” Wren added, “getting on RavensVision.”
“Sorry, what?”
“That’s what they call the jumbotron at the stadium. Come on, keep up.”
Arthur was deeply regretting this whole thing.
At this point, he might honestly prefer that they go bungee jumping.
A football game just had too many unknowns, too much prolonged excitement and intensity.
The doctor had just told them hours ago to ease up and chill out, and here they were about to walk into the lion’s den.
Worse, while he knew Wren was kidding, he doubted his ability to protect her from drunk, rowdy idiots who might be looking to pick a fight.
“God, I love the light rail,” Wren said out of nowhere, snapping him out of his worries just as the lights on the train flickered like something out of a horror film.
“You’re the only one,” Arthur said. All the swaying was making him ill.
“It feels like childhood to me, if that makes any sense.” She was staring wistfully out the window now, watching the city go by in a shaky blur.
“The few good parts of it. My uncle was always working, so he’d buy me a pass and I would just go exploring.
I always liked going to the neighborhoods you’re ‘not supposed to go to,’ ” she said, adding air quotes.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I hated how everyone wanted to pretend like they didn’t exist instead of helping to make things better.”