Chapter Three
I have an office! This is one of the unexpected bonuses of the job—the job I accepted three days ago from Charlotte Collins.
I had just about finished drafting a humiliating email to my old boss begging to come back to the Sox when Charlotte called me with the offer.
I can’t quite believe it, and I’m not sure she can either.
I swear I heard her mutter “an American” as I signed my contract.
But I guess my pitches won her over (good thing I left “Lach Ness Monster” on the cutting-room floor).
I spent the longest on Lachlan’s, playing up the homecoming angle.
I found a number of photos and videos of him in his tween and teen years, playing first for local teams in Scotland and then for Mersey’s own Academy.
I spliced them together into a montage, then thought it would be a nice touch to have a song from a Scottish band playing in the background.
After wading into some extremely opinionated Reddit threads about Scottish music, I chose a band called Biffy Clyro, who are apparently pretty big in the U.K.
but who I’d never heard of. Absolutely absurd name, but their sound was perfect for the video.
For the final clip, I found an interview where Lachlan says, “I’ve always hoped I’d wear the crimson and white again,” which I faded into a black screen displaying a simple message: Welcome Home.
I replay the video at my desk; I’m pretty pleased with it.
Sure, it’s a bit janky because I had to rip low-quality stuff from YouTube, but it makes me kind of emotional.
Watching hours of footage of games and interviews has given me a taste of the passion from the Mersey players and their supporters—it’s intense.
It’s almost daunting, really, the idea of jumping onto this team’s bandwagon as a thirty-year-old, rather than as a child.
With the Sox, I grew up watching games with my family, so working for them was kind of a dream come true.
But Mersey F.C.? There’s a storied history here, one I know nothing about. I’m going to have to earn this fandom.
The first few days in the job have been a blur—filling out paperwork for my work visa, meeting coworkers, getting oriented to the office.
But as much work as there’s been, it’s also quiet.
Preseason doesn’t start until July, so the building is mostly empty.
Charlotte keeps making vague apologies for it, promising more hustle and bustle when the team returns from their summer break.
I don’t mind, though; I have more than enough to catch up on.
This morning, for instance, I’ve scrolled Football Twitter for so long that my thumbs have started to cramp.
But as soon as I put down the phone, a pang of loneliness that had been held at bay bursts through.
It comes and goes, triggered by the most random things.
Like walking around Liverpool yesterday, trying to get my bearings, I saw a sign outside of a coffee bar that had spelled espresso wrong.
In an instant, I was thrown back to a bitterly cold day in the dead of a Boston winter, standing in front of a similarly misspelled sign and agreeing with Steven that despite the fact we couldn’t feel our fingertips, we would refuse to go into the store on principle—until we realized it was the only café in the neighborhood, and we traded in our pedantry for piping-hot mochas.
It’s strange, though: I don’t feel sad when I think about Steven.
It’s just a void, like a faint ringing in an empty room.
The hollowed-out remnant of a thing that once was and no longer is.
A chalk outline of my life, sprawled on a grimy sidewalk.
I almost think sadness would be preferable—at least then I could cry over some Ben probably too early for my parents, but Josh might already be in his classroom, tutoring kids before first period, supervising bus arrivals, or generally devoting every waking hour to his students.
I open my computer and FaceTime him, crossing my fingers that he’ll respond.
“Cor blimey!” he says, in the most ludicrous British accent this side of Oscar season. “Is that the queen herself ringing me on the telly?”
“The telly is the TV, you idiot.” But I can’t stop smiling; it’s like my whole body has warmed up five degrees.
“Ah, right, right. How the hell are you, Abs? When are you headed back stateside?” He’s all smiles underneath his crown of untidy brown curls, the same boyish grin I’ve (platonically) loved since we were seated next to each other in Mrs. Boothby’s second-grade class.
“I’ve got good news and bad news.”
The grin slips. “You got the job. That’s the bad news, you know.”
“I’ll come back to visit so often, I promise.”
He smirks. “That’s what all my transcontinental best friends say.”
I can’t look at him while he’s wearing his sad face, so I speechify while staring at the corridor outside my office door.
“I don’t know, Josh. Yeah, it’s crazy that six days after calling off my wedding I quit the Sox and flew across an ocean to a place where I don’t know anyone to work in a sport I don’t follow.
But I can’t sit around Boston and carry on with my life like nothing happened.
I’ve gotta do something to shake myself out of my funk.
So I kind of have to do this, right?” I dart my eyes back to him.
“It’s the only way. Clean break. Fresh start. ”
His sigh is sad, but somehow supportive. “No, of course. It’s the right move. I’m really, really happy for you. Just devastated for myself.”
“Devastating you is, as ever, my only goal in life.”
“And you’re pretty damn good at it these days.” He wobbles in my screen while he repositions his phone. “When are you coming back to pack up your apartment? Or have you decided to leave it to the raccoons?”
“I shoved everything I wanted into my car and drove it to my parents’ house before I left. I don’t think I can handle Boston at this point. Not with Steven lurking somewhere in the shadows.”
“Have you told him you’ve up and moved across the pond?”
All the warmth from seeing Josh seeps away at the thought of speaking to Steven, and my fingertips go ice cold, like I’ve been plunged into a frozen lake—or a bitter Boston winter, no mochas in sight.
“No. We agreed to give up our lease via email and I’m pretty sure I deleted ‘Abby and Steven wedding’ off our shared calendar.
If he needs to talk, he knows how to get in touch.
Of course, he’s now saved in my phone as ULTIMATE SHITWAD—DO NOT CALL. ”
“I can’t believe you gave him my pet name. You slut.”
When I laugh, it’s like shrugging off a heavy winter coat on the first day of spring.
Josh smiles back at me. “Seriously, though, you know Erica can get your stuff and have it packed and shipped to you in ten minutes flat.”
“With my books arranged in rainbow order to boot.” Erica is Josh’s wife, and I’m not entirely convinced she’s human (I mean that in the best possible way—mostly).
There’s a tiny pause where Josh looks like he’s deciding whether or not to say something. His smile has gone from rambunctious to sincere, slightly pulled down at the corners. “Hey, Abs, not for nothing, but you sound good. Like you’re almost happy again.”
His words set off a little tremor in my soul and a burning behind my eyes as I try to fight back tears. “Oof, do I? I don’t feel it.”
“But this whole new adventure is so exciting.” He’s almost pleading, like he’s trying to convince himself, and, by extension, me.
“No, I know. It’s great. I am genuinely excited. I just feel…I don’t know.” I wave my hand, hoping to pull my meaning out of the ether. “Putting on my stupid, too-small interview pantsuit last week made me feel really dumpy and sad.”
Josh’s nostrils flare in annoyance and he purses his lips: It’s his Teacher Look.
If I’m not careful, he’ll send me to detention.
“I swear, if you start with the whole ‘Flabby Abby’ thing again, I’m hanging up.
” Ah, Flabby Abby—a particularly low self-esteem moment from the mid-2010s.
“We shoved her in the closet where she was supposed to die a horrible death, remember?”
“Yes, of course. And I’m not conveying it right.” I fiddle with my bangs. “It’s not about how I look, honestly. My body carried me through some shit, you know? Plus, my boobs look amazing.”
“Pics or it didn’t happen.” He pumps his eyebrows up and down twice, because despite the fact we’ll always be just friends, he is human.
“Dream on. But yeah, I don’t know, it’s not Flabby Abby, it’s more like…Shabby Abby. Mentally Drab-by Abby. I feel mired in inertia. Torpid. That’s a word, right?”
“Yeah, it means ‘lethargic.’ ”
“It’s very helpful to have an English teacher for a best friend,” I say.
“But I spent the last, what, six months? Twelve? However long it was just kind of being a bump on a log, watching my relationship fall apart and not lifting a finger to prevent it because I didn’t want to rock the boat.
It’s like I sank into power-save mode. I stopped caring about my job, I was a terrible friend—no, don’t give me that face: I know I was shitty. ”
“You were depressed.”
“I’m not sure we’re ready to use the past tense there, but yeah.
Even if we exempt the whole Steven situation from the conversation, I was just coasting.
I mean, do you remember what my mom was like last Thanksgiving?
Dropping Jupiter-sized hints about how maybe it was time for a change in my life and maybe wedding planning would be good for me because it would give me something important to focus on and maybe Kyle or Dustin could find me a new job, and on and on and on? ”
“Well, you’re obviously the black sheep of the family, what with your high-pressure, award-winning media job with the most respected baseball team in America.” He rolls his eyes. “Could you be more of a disappointment?”
I laugh. “I know, right? How do they even deign to sit with me? But, like, despite being about as subtle as a hand grenade, she had a point. I mean, when I told my boss at the Sox I was leaving, she almost seemed relieved. She told me she thought I’d been unhappy for a while but she never knew what to do about it because all the work was still getting done.
So yeah, I took this job for a lot of reasons, not all of them related to ULTIMATE SHITWAD—DO NOT CALL.
I’m on this new adventure and I feel like I want to do more to shake off the funk.
This is my chance to really start over. Figure out what I want. What I really want.”
“So—tell me what you want, what you really, really want.”
I smile, even though he’s better than that joke. “Josh, even the Spice Girls knew that self-actualization takes more than a week.”
“Okay, okay, fair point. So what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. Take a dance class, maybe. Or meditate. Or find a therapist. Get myself moving in one way or another, physically or mentally or emotionally.”
I can tell I’m chipping away at Josh’s skepticism.
“Okay, I like this. Maybe you could train for a marathon.” He and Erica are both runners and have spent a solid decade trying to persuade me to go for jogs with them, as if my lungs could sustain more than thirty seconds of that torture.
This train of thought must be derailed before they send me a care package of blister pads and protein bars and those tiny running shorts that immediately get wedged in your crack.
“Lower those expectations: I’ll be happy if I can commit to a weekly yoga class.”
“The team probably has a pretty good gym you can use, at least.”
“Sure, we’re allowed to use the, like, C-Team Auxiliary Gym Annex after 11:30 p.m., provided there isn’t an actual footballer within a ten-mile radius of the building.”
“Well, they can’t have your germs getting all over the team’s machines—they might catch your enervation, your indolence, your hebetude.”
“Stop showing off, Merriam and/or Webster.”
“Now you’re just being Crabby Abby,” he says with a smirk.
“How many more you got?”
“Just ‘Gabby Abby,’ but I’ll save that for when I want to kick you off the phone.
” His eyes go out of focus as he looks away from the camera, then back.
“Which, conveniently, is right now. Call me later, or even better, come back to Boston for a bit so we can say goodbye—and maybe also so I can slash the tires on the moving truck or call in a bomb threat to the airport or have one of your sainted brothers issue a proclamation declaring you’re forbidden from leaving.
Pip pip cheerio, Top of the Pops, tea and biscuits! ” He blinks out of view.
I stare at my reflection in the black screen, somewhat obscured by smudges.
I hadn’t expected to go into so much detail about my revitalization plan.
When Josh tells Erica, she’ll put together a customized exercise routine, plus find me the best meditation coach in Liverpool and a private knitting tutor and cooking classes with a Michelin-starred chef and all manner of other incredibly kind and helpful things, and I won’t have the heart to tell her to stand down.
Her enthusiasm is admirable but in this case misplaced.
I love my friends and I love my family—emotional shrapnel notwithstanding—but I need to do this myself.
I need to steer my own ship out of murky waters.
The years of accumulated stress are weighing on my shoulders, seeping into my very marrow and making everything feel heavy, even my own pathetic bones.
Bones that did nothing to prevent their body’s life from falling apart.
Bones that couldn’t even be stirred to save a failing engagement.
I will make a plan. I will. I will reboot my life like a phoenix rising from the ashes, or at the very least like a…
chicken emerging from a mound of dirt. But I can’t get started on any rebirth plans quite yet because there’s a knock on my office door.
“Excuse me, do you know where I can find Charlotte Collins?” The man’s voice is lyrical and rich, a warm Scottish burr that ever so lightly trills the R in “Charlotte.”
Lachlan Ramsay is at my door.