Chapter 6
“A Shirley Temple. No, a cherry Coke,” my sister said. “No, a rum and Coke.”
I looked at her and I really, really wanted to do my thirteen-year-old eye roll. That had been the point in my life when I’d believed that toting around a stack of old books I’d found in the garage made me look erudite and cultured, but eventually I’d left them on a bench because they were heavy.
“No, wait,” Morgan ordered. “I’ll have a whiskey and Coke. Is that something people drink?” she asked the bartender. “Does it sound sophisticated?”
He stifled a yawn and didn’t bother to answer her question. “Whiskey and Coke it is,” he announced, and turned his back on us.
I had already made my own sophisticated choice, a ginger ale. After the whole thing at the party last January, I had no desire to drink myself even close to sick. Anyway, I had to be on my game tonight and ginger ale wouldn’t interfere with that. If anything, I’d feel refreshed and ready.
My sister wasn’t concerned about those things.
The bartender thumped a glass on the square napkin in front of her and she immediately took a large swallow from it.
Then the liquid spewed back out of her mouth as she coughed.
“Ugh, I didn’t know what whiskey would be so strong.
I thought the Coke would cover it,” she sputtered.
That really summed up both of us, early-twenties ladies who were socially inept enough to sit at the most popular bar in town to sip pop and spit out our drinks.
At least we looked good, in my estimation.
It had taken forever to get us this way!
I had been preparing to come here when Morgan had wandered into my room, as she was doing more and more frequently.
“Why are you getting gussied up?” she’d asked me.
“No reason.” I’d turned to study my backside in the mirror above my dresser, which only showed a small section of me at a time.
“I haven’t seen you wear anything nice in years,” she had commented. “Is that a skirt?”
I had looked down at what I had chosen. Yes, this was a skirt (a short one) and I was tall.
My legs looked long but they also looked very, very white, like pieces of string cheese.
“I’m not sure about this,” I said, thinking out loud.
I’d heard that a bunch of the Woodsmen players were back in town to celebrate the recent marriage of a defensive end.
It was all rumor—but maybe not. Because one of the guys who ate at our restaurant with the Junior Woodsmen, a nice older man named Eddie, had said something about “a big night” and how excited he was to go out and celebrate with the “boys.” I had asked him what they were celebrating, because I didn’t mind chatting with customers when I had a minute.
“Ronan’s wedding,” he’d told me. I had made the connections: he meant Ronan Wilder, the guy who had moved up from the Junior Woodsmen and onto the real Woodsmen team. He was also the defensive end who had recently eloped. We fans knew everything about their lives.
And by doing some additional social media research, I had determined that tonight was the night that the “boys” would be out around town for that celebration.
I had decided to give my former idea of Woodsmen-snagging another shot.
I had been feeling pretty good about myself lately, since I’d been taking more time to exercise and I had also been following some of Shane’s dietary tips (such as, it didn’t hurt me to have fruit and also that cold, leftover french fries weren’t a complete meal).
The bit of my butt that I could see in the dresser mirror had looked pretty good, too.
I had briefly explained that to my sister—not the part where I wanted to meet a Woodsmen player and somehow entrance him, but only how I planned to go out.
“That sounds fun,” she’d commented. “Can I come?”
It had taken me at least a minute to respond.
I had thought I had hallucinated her words or that she might have been body-snatched, but finally, I had heard myself saying yes.
Sure, Morgan, go out for the first time in your life, tonight!
Sure, wear some of my clothes (I didn’t have a great selection) since one hundred percent of what you own could be classified as pajamas!
Sure, I’ll help you put on makeup so that you don’t look like an actual corpse with your paleness!
My mom had been so thrilled when we’d come downstairs that it had made me angry, but also really, really sad.
Was it actually such an occasion that her daughters would spend one night away from the restaurant, having fun?
The fun wasn’t happening, not quite yet.
It was raining, just on the cusp of turning to sleet, and I was already worried about driving home on tires that should have been swapped out a few thousand miles ago.
We’d had to park kind of far away, since there were a lot of people downtown tonight (I wasn’t the only Woodsmen supersleuth around).
My high-heeled shoes made my legs look even longer but they weren’t the best for a protracted walk, and the pair that Morgan was wearing hadn’t worked for that, either.
Hers also belonged to me and my feet were a tiny bit bigger.
I was two inches taller and as I had explained to Shane, my extremities were proportional to my height.
I wondered what he was doing tonight. The amount of travel he did was insane, so he could have been anywhere…
but I could quickly find out, because he checked in a lot.
Ok, the last pictures he’d taken had come from Iowa where he was watching spring practices and talking to coaches.
“Where are you going next?” I texted now. I also liked to keep in touch.
“I don’t think they’re coming here,” my sister said. She was dabbing at her eyes with her cocktail napkin, because they watered every time she took another sip of her drink. “There aren’t enough people. If the Woodsmen were going to show up, this place would be packed.”
“Maybe no one is as savvy as we are,” I suggested, but that wasn’t true.
My sister had been the most clueless high schooler I’d ever seen, without any friends and without any prospects, and I’d followed in a close second behind her.
I might have been slightly more worldly in that I’d gotten myself to college, while she had taken to her bed and hadn’t improved at all.
“This is terrible,” she told me, finally giving up on the cocktail. I took a small taste and decided that she was right. “Why don’t we try another place? And a different kind of alcohol,” she added.
I hated to waste our money but she was right about whiskey. The Coke didn’t hide the taste at all. We split my pop and then I held her arm so that she didn’t step out of her shoes, which were my shoes, and we left the bar without anyone falling.
The next place we went, though, was also fairly empty.
As was the next. By this point, my sister had tried three different kinds of alcohol: whiskey, gin, and tequila.
She’d ordered that straight and swore that it really tasted pretty good.
I tried it and did not agree, not at all.
I was disappointed in our drinks and by the failure of my mission to find myself a Woodsmen player.
But it was kind of fun even without that, because it was kind of fun to hang out with my sister.
It was weird to admit, since we’d lived together for more than twenty years, but we didn’t know each other very well.
I had always followed Max around, worshiping him, and then I had started working and studying all the time.
We didn’t have family dinners or hang out together for any events, except for going to our brother’s games before he’d quit playing. How else did relatives get to know one another?
Maybe over tequila, because Morgan was suddenly very into sharing. “Did I tell you about the guy I’ve been talking to? The one in Germany? Er ist so sü?.”
“What did you just say?”
It turned out that during all those hours when I had thought she was sleeping and/or rotting, she had also been playing a very intricate online game, which she also described to me in great detail.
Daniel, the German guy, was also hugely into it and they’d started chatting outside of playtime, too.
“He’s teaching me his language. My favorite word so far is Backpfeifengesicht.
It’s someone with a face that wants to be slapped and that’s what I’ve thought about Max for a while now.
I also like Vollidiot. A full idiot, not just halfway. ”
“Max is an idiot and a backpack-whatever,” I agreed. “What happened to him? He used to be fun and cool.”
“Icarus.”
“What? Is that more German?” I asked.
“No, it’s the guy in Greek myths who flew too close to the sun, melted his feathers, and died,” she said, not very patiently.
“You took the same English classes that I did with the same teachers. I know you were supposed to read all those stories in ninth grade with Mrs. Hellman. Icarus was the thrill-seeker who didn’t listen to good advice.
He was like, ‘I can fly wherever I want! Screw you!’ And then he drowned. ”
“I have no recollection of Max trying to fly,” I told her.
“I’m not being literal,” she chided. “I mean that he never listened. All his teachers tried to tell him to study, that there were thousands of kids coming out of high school with his test scores and grades, that he needed to apply to some safety schools. Max’s coaches tried to tell him how difficult it would be to play pro baseball and they told our father, too. Dad never listened, either.”
“So you’re saying that he messed up his own life and turned himself into a jerk? I guess that’s true. He’s such a disappointment.”
“We all are,” she said. “Look at us.”