Chapter 9
The man scratched his head. “Do the Woodsmen even use this?”
“The Junior Woodsmen do,” I told him. “And they’re absolutely a part of the Woodsmen Football organization.”
“A team plays here, on this field?” He scratched harder. “I bet this turns into a damn swap. Excuse my French.”
He was excused. “It does,” I agreed, and Ed had more specifics to give him about drainage issues and some solutions that he’d come up with during his time as a player here and as the building manager. The landscaping contractor listened and seemed impressed.
There was a lot happening now at the practice facility.
Since the summer training session was over, the Woodsmen were out of the building and back at the stadium.
It meant that the roof repairs could start.
The new lockers had been delivered, but I’d realized that we needed new flooring in the room first, so that had gone in.
Next up? Plumbing. That project was something I was going to push through regular approval channels, rather than sneaking it past Mr. Gowan.
I couldn’t actually get his signature on anything since he’d been out of the office so much.
Which was fine, because I was keeping myself busy.
Besides overseeing the renovations here, I had decided to undertake a marketing campaign for the Junior Woodsmen.
Did I know what I was doing? No, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.
Taylor, who worked in the actual Marketing Department, was helping me on the side and she had great ideas.
It was fun and also a relief to know that she wasn’t mad at me, since Kiya actually was.
Or maybe she was just upset in general, including and not limited to me.
She’d been quiet at the lunches she came to but she’d missed a few this week.
Victoria said that she was eating at her desk, alone, in Accounts and Payroll, where there was very bad lighting and the guy in the next cubicle snuffled all the time.
“We’re a lot more fun,” she had assured us today. “Are you guys ready for the game? The first one!” she’d marveled and had to fan herself. “Cate, are you going to wear a Wilder jersey?”
I would have, if the stupid Woodsmen team shop had actually made them.
Apparently, they only produced jerseys for the starters and fan favorites, which Ronan wasn’t.
But he was going to play in the first game, because the preseason was still part of his evaluation.
The coaches were putting in the returning players but they were also trying out the new guys to see how they would fit into the offense and defense.
That was what he had explained to me, and that was what I explained to Taylor and Victoria.
They listened politely but I finally realized that as lifelong football fans, they were already aware of the purpose of the preseason.
I had my ticket, which I’d received as a Woodsmen employee rather than as a friend of a player.
Ronan didn’t get any of those, while the top guys always had a bunch to give away.
But it was just so amazing that he was getting out there at all.
Ed and I had talked about it as we waited for this contractor to show up.
“I’m so proud,” he’d told me, smiling. And then I’d given him some news: I’d gotten him a ticket, too.
Actually, he had Mr. Gowan’s, because my boss rarely looked at his work email but I had.
I’d gone into his account and taken his employee ticket.
It was another thing that could come back and bite me hugely, but I momentarily forgot the risk and worry when I saw Ed’s reaction.
He was overjoyed and I was glad that he’d be there to watch with me.
I hadn’t ever seen an actual football game, just some clips when I’d been doing my intensive study of the sport.
Unfortunately, there were no available replays of Junior Woodsmen matchups but I’d found some videos of Ronan’s college games.
I’d noticed that the camera focused way too much on the offense of the other team rather than the guys on the defense who were stopping them.
Anyway, besides when he and Myles had practiced on this swampy field, I hadn’t ever watched him play before.
I wouldn’t see him in person until the game, either, because apparently the team had a weird ritual of everyone staying at the same hotel together the night before they played and then driving in a bus to the stadium.
And I had gotten pretty used to seeing him, like when we had our dinners.
I had majorly failed with the cumin incident, but I really had made a big effort to learn to prepare nutritious meals that were full of complex, lean, low, complete, and whatever other tags needed to go with various ingredients.
So had Ronan, and I felt like we’d produced some good stuff together.
Now, he’d be spending a lot more time with his team. His new team, the real Woodsmen.
“Miss?”
I blinked and saw the landscaping contractor. “Should I send my estimate over to Surani? She’s the usual point person for us,” he told me.
“No, you can just give it directly to me,” I answered, and he didn’t seem overly confident about that.
Which was the correct response: he shouldn’t have been confident, since I was basically scamming everyone.
I was going to try to push this through just like I had with the new lockers, the new flooring, the gym equipment, the sideline heaters, the benches, snow blowers…
Judas Priest. Maybe I needed to slow down.
Mr. Gowan had never given me any indication of the budget for the Office of Special Projects, or even if there was any budget at all.
He had signed the requests I’d submitted to him and they’d all been approved, no matter what the amount.
But this, regrading and redoing the entire Junior Woodsmen field, would have been the biggest ask yet.
“Cate?”
Now I looked over at Ed. “It’s all fine,” I said.
I’d always accomplished everything that I’d wanted in my life, and I could do this, too.
I had my apartment, which was almost perfect.
It would be, once I had installed pictures and drapes.
And I’d done amazing things in school, although I hadn’t gotten the internship I’d wanted, and of course I hadn’t gotten to be the valedictorian.
The guy who’d received that honor had been smart and also popular, but I hadn’t always meshed well with everyone.
My first roommate in college had moved out because she got annoyed by my neatness, like having standards was some kind of problem?
But if I mentally catalogued my list of accomplishments, which I did sometimes, I could count up a lot of them. I could get the Junior Woodsmen field done, too.
“This is great,” I told Ed. “See you tomorrow?” We had plans to meet at one of the concession stands at Woodsmen Stadium, and I planned to buy him a beer.
I got an employee discount…I realized that I hadn’t thought about concessions at this field, though.
Hot chocolate and handwarmers could have been very popular.
I drove back to my office and found that, to my surprise, I wasn’t the only person in there. Mr. Gowan’s door was closed, but he heard my entrance and called, “Come.”
I did, like an obedient dog. “Hello,” I told him. “I didn’t realize that you were back.”
“I’ll be at the game tomorrow,” he answered. I felt a moment of panic about his ticket, since I’d taken it, until he continued, “I’ll be in a friend’s box.”
Then the panic got worse.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked me.
He pointed to his monitor and I walked around the desk to see what he meant.
He was actually checking his inbox, and he was indicating an email he’d received from someone in the accounting department that asked about an invoice.
I recognized it immediately, since the name of the payee included the word “lockers.”
“Hm, that’s interesting,” I answered blandly. “I’ll take care of it.” I held my breath but that was apparently all he needed—he wasn’t actually curious about what it was, he just didn’t want to have to deal.
“Good.” He looked through the window at the back of the fence and I figured that we were done, but he piped up again with another question. “Do you know a woman named Victoria? She works for the Woodsmen.”
“Yes,” I said cautiously. “Why?”
“What do you know?”
“Her department is across the hall,” I said. “You can use the employee directory to find out information about people.”
I had to show him how to find that, since he’d never heard of a directory, and then he typed in her first name using his index fingers. There were actually three Victorias in the organization.
“This is the person that I know,” I said, pointing to her picture. “But I’m not sure who you’re talking about.”
“Hm.” He tapped his lip with his finger. “There’s nothing interesting.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Thank you. That’s all,” he told me.
It was something to ask Victoria about, but she wasn’t there when I stopped to see her on my way up to Accounts and Payroll.
I needed to straighten out the issue with the invoice for the lockers.
It wasn’t a big deal, of course, except that it was for equipment that wasn’t actually approved by my boss.
I found the author of the message as he was getting ready to leave for the day.
“Mr. Gowan doesn’t check his email very often,” I told the guy.
That was true. “If you contact me directly, you’ll get a faster response.
” That was also true, but it was also sneaky.
He only nodded and typed something, saying he’d made a note.
Before I went back downstairs, I checked to see if Kiya was in her cubicle. I hadn’t been sure how to deal with her, because I didn’t really need friends and if she was angry, that was (of course) her issue to solve and not mine.
But I went to see her anyway. “Hi, Kiya.”
She glanced up. “Oh, hi.”