Page 23 of The Cadence

“I’m going to work,” I texted now, which meant that I wouldn’t be able to write as much.

The manager at the store was pretty lenient about most things except that she really, really didn’t want us to be on our phones, like she didn’t want to see them even poking out of our pockets.

Will didn’t get back to me by the time I arrived, probably because he was in a meeting, doing walk-through stuff at that stadium, or participating in all the other things they did to prepare for a game (in addition to all the things they’d already done here in Michigan).

“What do you call yourself?” I asked my coworker as I opened up my cash register.

“I’m Cully,” he reminded me.

“I know your name,” I said, laughing. “I mean that I’m a Tennessean, because I’m from Tennessee. If I live here instead, would I turn into a Michiganian or a Michigander?”

“I’m a Tennessean,” Cully repeated, imitating the way I’d said the words but making them very, very exaggerated.

“I don’t sound like that!”

“You do,” he told me. “You kept talking about the chester drawers that you picked up and I though you meant some guy. I didn’t understand until you showed me a picture of furniture.”

“What? Oh, the chest of drawers,” I said, speaking each syllable carefully. “I guess it sounds funny to you. You sound funny to me, too.”

“How?” he asked.

“When you need to clean the floor at the end of the night, you go get the…” I held my nose and exaggerated the word.

“M-ah-p. It’s mop ,” I told him. “There’s no ‘a’ in that word.

” He laughed, too, but we didn’t have much time for chatting.

Fridays were busy for us with everyone preparing for the upcoming Woodsmen game by stocking up for their watch parties, and I was tired when I finally left.

“You say it now,” I told Will later that night when we talked on the phone. I had spelled out the words.

“Chest of drawers,” he stated. “Why did I have to do that?”

“You don’t pronounce it like I do,” I said, kind of disappointed. “I’m a lot more country than you, I guess.”

“Hold on. Is someone making fun of how you talk?” he asked me.

“No, no,” I answered. “We were just laughing about it.”

“Who? You and a girl at work?”

“No, it was a guy, Cully. He thinks—”

“Cully,” he repeated. “I haven’t heard you talk about him before.”

“I probably have. Maybe I didn’t use his name,” I suggested.

“Maybe not.”

There was noise in the background, something that sounded like thumps.

“That’s some of the guys at the door,” Will said.

“Oh, ok. Have fun, but don’t stay out too late. You have a game tomorrow,” I reminded him, in case he had forgotten why he was in West Virginia and not here with me.

“Sure, sure,” he said dismissively, but I heard a smile in his voice. “You sound like somebody’s mother. Not mine, because she always had a lot to worry about that was more important than football.”

“And not mine, because I never played any sports and she never really noticed when I went to bed,” I answered. I heard more pounding. “I guess you better go. I’ll be writing to you later.”

“And I’ll be writing back,” he answered, and we hung up.

I hadn’t asked him about his ankle, not again, but it was on my mind and I was sure that it was on his as well.

He wasn’t wearing the boot anymore and he hadn’t missed any games, but I’d seen him limping slightly.

I’d also seen him wincing a little after he’d flown home the last time they’d been away like this.

The next day, I was back at the register in the nearly empty store and watching the two ancient Woodsmen announcers do their pregame show on the big TVs.

We had only a single shopper, and he was spending his time rooting around the produce section so I could mostly ignore him.

The same coworker from the day before, Cully, was half-heartedly replenishing the milk coolers but he kept wandering out from the back so that he could see the screens too, and I had a feeling that the racks wouldn’t fill until the Woodsmen were done (and he had listened to all the postgame shows, which everyone here also liked to do).

The home team “won” the coin toss so they didn’t get the ball…

I still didn’t really understand what was happening there, but I would figure it out later.

Right now I watched the Woodsmen offense come on and then move down the field, getting close enough to the end zone to kick a field goal and score.

It was like you could hear the entire town cheer and I definitely heard my coworker Cully yelling like he himself had just gotten those three points for the team.

The Woodsmen kicked off and West Virginia tried to run it toward the other end zone, and now it was time for the defense. I watched the big guy in the Bodine jersey run out—

“Miss? Excuse me, miss?”

I flicked my eyes toward the solitary customer. “Can I help you?”

“This lettuce is simply a disgrace.”

Will was at the line, getting into his stance. I watched him twist his foot slightly like maybe his ankle hurt, and then the quarterback of the other team started to yell some nonsense to his players. I was going to learn more about the offense, I really was.

“Miss?Miss!”

“A disgrace,” I repeated, but I was still watching. “Holy Moses, come on!” I covered my mouth with my hand as he violently collided with the guy across from him, someone I hated with all my heart. How dare that man have tried to push Will around like that?

“And the carrots! They’re…well, there’s no way to say it other than…they’re phallic.”

I turned away from the TVs and squinted at the shopper. “Excuse me?”

“That was a loss of half a yard,” the football announcer told us. She said more stuff, too, but this customer was behaving in a very distracting way.

“Look!” He held up a bunch of carrots and then flipped them over, pointy ends toward the sky. We both watched as they flopped into pathetic arches. “See what I mean? If that’s not penile, I don’t know what is.”

I felt myself blush. “I don’t want to think that way about our produce!”

“Short gain of about a yard on second down for the West Virginia Elks,” the TV speakers told me, and the color commentator said that the Woodsmen defense was already holding tough against the run today and the Elks would have to try a pass in this third and long situation.

He mentioned “play action,” which was a term I had heard before and would now look up.

“Go Woodsmen!” I called, and shook my fist at the opposing quarterback. “Just try that action stuff! Just try to get it! You never will.”

“Miss, I need to speak to your manager.”

“Hold on.” As forecasted, the ball sailed through the air…but there was a guy in an orange jersey, tackling a guy in green who tried to catch it! “No good!” I yelled. “Ha, told you so.”

“If someone doesn’t speak to me about these reprehensible vegetables, I will be forced to lodge a formal protest!”

“What?” The Woodsmen players who caught punts were running out onto the field and Will jogged off it, so I turned to the customer.

“Sir, I’m sorry, but our manager is home watching the game.

I’m the best you’re going to get for a complaint department.

Those carrots don’t look right but I don’t think there’s anything… ”

“Phallic,” he filled in, and I nodded.

“I just think they’re old. We usually get a big delivery on Monday, if you want to come back then. You can leave them here,” I suggested, and he dropped the wilted vegetables on my conveyor belt and walked off, muttering angrily.

The rest of the day was quiet, up until the game and the postgame show ended. Then people seemed to get hungry, or maybe their cupboards were now bare because they’d stress-eaten everything in them. Things had gotten very close and very nail bite-y in the fourth quarter.

Thank goodness, the defense had come through. I expressed that several times to my coworker Cully, because I had gotten a little angry that the other side of the team hadn’t done enough.

“The offense really should have scored more,” I hissed as he quickly bagged the groceries I scanned. I checked to see if the customer was listening, but she was trying to type in her loyalty number and that keypad sometimes got funky. Her attention was diverted.

“I think the offense was trying their best,” he told me.

“And what about special teams?”

“What about them? Ma’am, do you care if I put the detergent in with your cereal?” he asked the woman.

She didn’t and I helped her input her phone number.

“Special teams could have done a better job, too,” I said.

That meant the guys who caught the ball after punts.

Why couldn’t they have run it back for a touchdown?

“Special teams” also included the field goal people, and they could have faked a kick and scored a touchdown themselves.

I just felt like there was a lot of pressure on the defense and everyone should have stepped up more, but Cully only laughed when I said that.

We were working hard and I didn’t notice the customers much, except to say hello and other normal things. Then I heard someone call my name. I looked down the line of people waiting to check out and saw the girl that I’d had coffee with, Kirsten.

“Calla,” she said again, and waved the six-pack she carried. “What’s up?”

I waited until she was in front of me so I didn’t have to yell in anyone’s face. “Hey,” I greeted her. “How are you? Do you have your ID ready?”

“You never texted me back,” she said. “I thought you left or got booted out of Bodine’s house.”

“Booted?” I echoed. “No, I’m here. I thought you’d be back at school for the fall semester.”

“Uh, not yet. I’m going to a party tonight,” she informed me, and patted the cans.

“Fun. Can I see your driver’s license?”

“I don’t have one,” she told me. “Nobody in The City drives, because we have adequate public transportation.”