Chapter 3 #3
“We were talking,” he answered. “I didn’t get mad, either. When I do, you’ll know. I start throwing things around, like lockers and cars. I don’t care that you think I should have bigger goals, and…why else am I supposed to be mad?”
“You thought I was trying to get Ed fired.”
“No, I didn’t,” he said, shaking his head. “And why are you pissed off at me?”
“Because…because,” I said, frustrated. “Because you think I’m a bitch.”
“Woah, what?” Now he stopped. “I don’t think that.”
“Well, now you think I’m crazy for saying it,” I told him.
“I wouldn’t call you either of those things. You know what this is?” He pointed at my midsection.
“My torso?”
“It’s hunger. You need lunch, so you’re jumping to conclusions. Come on.” He took my coat sleeve and started tugging me along again. He did it gently, but if he’d wanted to, he could have yanked me right down.
When we got to his car/truck, I said it again. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize, except if you don’t want a burger because now I’m really in the mood. We never established if you’re a vegetarian.”
“I’m not,” I told him. I was happy to go with him, but it didn’t happen.
Ronan looked over my shoulder. “Oh, there’s Eddie. I’m going to yell.”
I understood why he warned me now, like he had when we’d stood on the table in the epicenter. His voice was deep and boomed out with the force of a tractor-trailer’s horn. I quickly covered my ears.
Ed waved and hollered back that we needed to talk, so we made the walk down the gravel path again.
When we got closer, I could see that he looked unhappy.
“There you are,” he said to me. “Let’s all go to my office.
” The three of us went to discuss things with the roofing contractor.
I watched for anything awful along the way but the coast was clear of vermin.
That was the only good news—the rest was bad. There was no patching the roof, because it was in terrible shape. “All of it?” I confirmed. “Even the section in the front, above where the Woodsmen will practice?”
“All of it,” the contractor said. He didn’t want to give an exact cost, not until he had time to sit down and look at some numbers, but he threw out a rough estimate. Ed paled when he heard it.
I sat for a moment, taking it in. “I hadn’t thought of it like this, but it’s one building,” I said slowly. “It all needs to be fixed at one time. You wouldn’t repair half a roof.”
“Yes,” the contractor said. “Yeah, obviously.”
“I mean, if there are rats on this side, there will be on the other side.”
“I think they’re mice. The exterminator always clears the entire place before summer rolls around,” Ed agreed. “But they come back.”
“If the pipes are bad here, they are over there,” I continued. “It’s all connected.”
“Like this building is its own conspiracy theory,” Ronan suggested.
This was the tactic to take—not to say that it was a conspiracy theory, but that it was a problem for the Woodsmen team.
For these major issues, I could go around my own boss and apply directly to the office that handled the physical plant (which was not actually a plant).
“I think we can get this done,” I told them.
“How long have you been with the team?” the contractor asked. He sounded skeptical.
“About six months,” I answered. He looked skeptical, too. But he had to leave for another job and Ronan reminded Ed that he had come to pick up a broken leaf blower.
“The what? Oh,” Ed said, and his eyes slid to me. “Right, the leaf blower.”
Ronan laughed. “You’re a schemer, Eddie.
” Then they both looked at me and I thought I might understand.
Was Ed trying to set us up? I shook my head, because I didn’t enjoy manipulation and neither would Ronan, I was sure.
He was taking it as a joke instead of getting mad, though.
I didn’t know Ed very well but he didn’t seem the type to do something maliciously.
Anyway, it was also time for me to go. “I’ll talk to you again when I hear about getting this approved,” I told him, and I didn’t look at Ronan when I said goodbye to him, too.
I walked out to the front parking lot with the roofing contractor. “What’s your position with the Woodsmen team?” he asked. Now he sounded more than skeptical. He was outright suspicious.
“I work in the Office of Special Projects,” I said, and he was correct to feel both skeptical and suspicious of me.
I hadn’t been there very long, my job had nothing to do with anything, I was twenty-two, I had no experience in managing construction projects, and I was doing this behind my boss’s back.
There was no reason that I could accomplish jack squat.
And besides the global problems of the building which were potentially solvable, like the roof and the rats, there were other issues that were specific to the Junior Woodsmen team and I had no ideas about how to tackle those.
There was the terrible field, for one thing, and the lack of lights around it.
There was crappy old equipment, broken benches in their locker room, and rusty machines in the weight room that looked like they’d been scavenged from an abandoned high school gym.
It didn’t seem like I could fix any of that.
But why not? I had done everything else that I’d wanted in my life.
Yes, I’d gotten help from teachers and then professors, and I’d had a few mentors at different jobs—but I’d found those mentors myself and I’d also actively sought any help I’d received.
I’d been the one to put it all together so that now, I was the one reaping the benefits.
It was possible that I could screw up those benefits by bending the rules for a development league team that no one cared about, no one except for Ed.
Not even the players seemed to mind how much their situation sucked.
They didn’t bother to do anything to better their circumstances, which was a possibility, wasn’t it? You had to try and put in effort.
I thought about that on my way back to the beautiful facility where I worked, the Woodsmen Stadium complex.
You had to try. You had to put in effort.
And sure, I had been the one to go ask for help but people had responded and stepped up for me.
Now, here I was in the position to help someone else. Ed needed it.
I had accomplished everything I’d put my mind to. Almost. This would be a challenge but maybe I could do this, too. It would be something else that I could add to my list of things I was proud of: I had bought this car, I had gotten into college and then graduated without a mountain of debt…
Mountain. It made me think of Ronan Wilder and the idea that Ed might have tried to arrange our meet-up today—it sure seemed like that to me.
I had been mad but it was actually nice, I supposed.
Most people had the idea that fixing others up was a good thing, as if everyone was seeking a relationship and “love.” That obviously wasn’t true, but he’d thought that I needed it (or that Ronan did) and it was sweet that he’d made an effort to bring us together.
Embarrassing, too, but I wouldn’t let that show.
Ed wasn’t aware that Ronan and I hadn’t had any contact since that barn party, but why would we have?
There had been some talk about going mini golfing again but nothing had come of it and I hadn’t expected it to.
Sure, I wanted to make friends but I wasn’t going to force anything.
I had too much self-respect. Just like I wasn’t going to chase after those three girls who sat together at lunch and had such a good time, I also wasn’t going to throw myself at Ronan Wilder for friendship or for anything else.
No, definitely not. I didn’t need or want that. I kept driving through the landscape that I was pretty sure should have shown some hopeful signs by now—hopeful signs of spring. They were probably there, but I just wasn’t able to see them quite yet.