Her golden eyes were gleaming with some laughter-induced tears, her wide mouth was turned up in absolute merriment, and even her freckles seemed to stand out more against her pale skin. She looked like the best time there ever was, and he leaned across the table, took her head in his hand, kissed her mouth, got the same sweet shock as he had when he’d done it last night, and said, “You know what? I’ll take that reaction.” Grinning like a fool.
She said, “See? I told you that you were a good person.” And smiled with the kind of heart-melting sweetness that just … well, melted his heart. Which was probably a bad sign. Or a good one.
He was so confused.
“OK,” Dyma said. “Explain.”
“My name’s not Kris,” Harlan said. “It’s Harlan Kristiansen. I’m a wide receiver for the Portland Devils.”
“And you’re still not the bodyguard,” Dyma told Owen.
“Well, I could be,” Owen said, “since I seem to be spending most of my time lately hauling Harlan’s butt out of trouble. But I’m also a center for the Devils.”
“An All-Pro center,” Harlan put in. He couldn’t tell what Jennifer was thinking. She wasn’t reacting much at all, was what it was. Call that “unusual.” What did it mean, though?
Dyma said, “So. Mom. Looks like we can tell them what you do for a living. All this secret-keeping looks pretty silly now, huh? Itoldyou your job wasn’t going to be that big a deal. Oh. We’re taking off. Wow. This feelsreallydifferent than on a jumbo. That makes sense, though. The drag and weight are so much less, so it takes less thrust to get the same lift. I need to look up the equations.”
She’d clearly moved on from the topic, so Harlan asked Jennifer, “What do you do for a living? Now I’m the one trying to guess, and I’m blank. Idaho doesn’t have a lot of pro football teams.”
“Idaho doesn’t have a lot of pro anything,” Jennifer said. “Nope. I’m Blake Orbison’s executive assistant, up in Wild Horse, Idaho.” She smiled cheerily at him. “I’m guessing you both know him. Probably pretty well, because I’m also guessing Owen’s spent some of his career snapping him the ball, and thatyou’vespent some ofyourscatching his passes. Football is my life. Except not, because Blake doesn’t play football anymore, and I’m losing my job anyway.”
“Wait, what?” Dyma asked. “Mom. What?”
“Oh, shoot,” Jennifer said. “I wasn’t going to tell you yet. Don’t worry. I’m going to get another one. We’ll be fine.” She didn’t look quite as sure about that as the words sounded, though.
Harlan said, “So, wait. You lost your jobandbroke up with your boyfriend? Recently? When was all this?”
“Wednesday.” She broke off a piece of chocolate croissant, still trying to make it look airy, but it looked a little forced to him. “Both things.”
Harlan said, “And all you did was drink a couple of Irish Coffees? Man, that’s restraint. I’ve behaved worse than that when I’ve lost agame.”
“I know, right?” she said. “I didn’t get drunk and fall into bed with you, like I’m guessing just about every other single woman would have, and if it’s true of the married ones, too, don’t tell me. I exercised and went to bed early. You’d think I’d get a prize for that, except that you never get those kinds of prizes, and anyway, that’s just my life.”
“Born careful,” Harlan said.
“Well, no,” Dyma said. She’d been looking upset since she’d heard about the job. “More like she hasn’t had a choice. And now she’s not going to have one again. Really? Blake’s laying you off? That’s why I was going to be able toleave,though. Because you were OK, and I wasn’t going to be wrecking your life again. How can I go now?”
16
Walk On
Jennifer so did not wantto have this conversation here. She wanted to eat her croissant and be on a private jet and pretend she was capable of flirting with Kris—Harlan. She wanted to be somebody else, with somebody else’s life, for a little while longer. Real life would come back soon enough.
No choice, though, because here the conversation was. When you were the parent of an eighteen-year-old who’d been stubborn all her life, you took your conversations where they happened, because the chance might not come again.
“Of course you’re not wrecking my life,” she said. “Blake’s not going to be staying in Wild Horse much, the resort is built, and he doesn’t need me anymore. And that’s OK, because I’m going to get a new job. Maybe even a better one, who knows? He said he’d help me. And you’ve never wrecked anything. You’re the best thinginmy life. And of course you’re going to leave. This is your time to fly. And maybe it’s mine, too, who knows? It’s all going to be fine.”
“Really?” Dyma said. “Without Grandma there to talk things over with and tell you you’re awesome, not to mention her disability check paying Grandpa’s rent? In Wild Horse without the Blake job, which is the only thing that’s made people be nice to you?”
“I’m sure they’d be nice to her anyway,” Owen said. “She’s a nice person. Anyway, getting sucked up to because you’re a football player isn’t really anybody being nice. It’s just getting sucked up to.”
“You don’t get it,” Dyma said. “You don’t know.”
“No, I don’t,” Owen said. “On the other hand, Orbison’s no kind of fool, and he doesn’t suffer fools, either, so if he hired her, I’m guessing she’s as good as they come. I’m also guessing he knows everybody there is to know, job-wise.”
“He does,” Kris—Harlan—said. “He was making money outside of football when he was stillinfootball. He’s a good guy, too. If he says he’ll help, he will.”
“Then why doesn’t he switch her around or something,” Dyma said, “instead of just firing her?”
