Page 142 of The House of Wolves

As I looked around the room, I suddenly remembered a touring musical my mother had taken me to at the old Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco when I was twelve or thirteen years old. It was calledWoman of the Year. I couldn’t even remember who played the lead. But for some reason, the lyrics to her big showstopping number have always stayed with me: “I’m one of the girls who’s one of the boys.”

But for how much longer?

When the pictures of me at Ben Cantor’s house were first published, I had gotten a call from Joel Abrams within the hour. He told me that what he called mysituationwould be addressed during Super Bowl week, the next time all the NFL owners would be together in one place.

Now here we all were. I idly wondered if the machinery that would get me removed from their club once and for all had been slowly grinding back to life without my officially knowing it.

Maybe I wasn’t experiencing anger or sadness—those were just ways of sugarcoating things. Maybe it was just fear, plain and simple, that they might really take the Wolves team away from me this time.

A. J. Frost offered me a drink. I said a Grey Goose on the rocks would do me nicely, thank you.

“Your father’s drink of choice, as I recall,” Frost said.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to give me a heads-up about what’s about to happen here.”

“Let’s wait until the commissioner arrives,” Frost said as he went to get me my vodka. “Then I’ll explain everything.”

While we did wait, the men made awkward small talk about Sunday’s game, between the hometown Dolphins and the Vikings. Carl Paulson congratulated me on what he called the Wolves’ “cracking good season.”

“I believe it’s the first of many. I don’t know if anybody in this room agrees, but I feel as if I know how to do this now.”

Rex Cardwell laughed and raised his own glass and said, “And them paparazzi back in your town sure know how to do you, missy!”

There was a knock on the door then, and Joel Abrams walked in. When he saw me, he said, “I was wondering if she would even have the guts to show up.”

“It was important that she see, and hear, what’s about to happen,” Frost said.

“At least we’re going to correct the mistake that was made in Los Angeles,” Abrams said.

“We think the mistake was made well before that,” Amos Lester said.

“Whatever,” Abrams said. “I’m glad you gentlemen finally came to your senses.”

I raised my glass, as if in a toast. “I’mhere,guys. I can hear you.”

Frost looked around the room.

“Any of my friends want to say anything before I get to it?” he said.

“You go ahead, A.J.,” Ed McGrath of the Titans said. “It was really you who got the ball rolling on this thing in the first place.”

“Before I do,” Frost said, “is there anything you’d like to say, Jenny?”

“Do I have to defend my life again?”

“As a matter of fact, no,” Frost said.

“Then whyarewe all here?”

A. J. Frost walked to the window then, the lights of downtown Miami behind him, almost like backlighting, as he turned around. Before he could say anything, Joel Abrams said, “We really do need to get to this, A.J. I mean, we do have my commissioner’s party to attend.”

“Not you,” Frost said.

I was watching Abrams, who looked genuinely confused.

“What does that mean?”

“What it means,” Frost said, “is that we called you here to tell you you’re fired, Joel.”