Chapter Fifteen

FIFTEEN

"Hey, we have to show you—oh, she's busy."

I peer around my computer monitors to see Ben in the doorway, with Eric behind him. "What's up?"

"How do you know she's busy?" Eric asks, nudging his way past Ben into my office. "It's not even nine thirty." He tosses an apple from hand to hand.

"Yeah, how?" I'm poring over clips from the last game, my screen full of tiny thumbnails like pieces of confetti. It's my procrastination-slash-brainstorming hour, so they were as likely to find me in the middle of a deep dive on Mindy Kaling's relationship with B. J. Novak as they were to find me working.

"Your hair," Ben says without guile. "When you're working, you always put it in a ponytail."

Eric crunches down on his apple.

I touch my hair, no, don't touch the hair, and my face flushes.

It's clear when he realizes this wasn't a normal thing to say. In one squirming motion he ducks his chin, rubs the back of his neck, and directs his gaze to the hallway, where nothing at all is happening. Eric watches him with a confounded squint, slowly chewing.

I've never thanked a piece of fruit before, but I'd kiss the waxy skin of this Granny Smith if I could. I don't want to hear whatever Eric would say if his mouth weren't full. He's as subtle as a leopard print faux fur coat.

Once in high school, Shane Kowalski walked into a party while the perfect song from the Gossip Girl soundtrack was playing, and I tried to perch on the arm of the couch and throw my head back, a glamorous curve in my wrist as I held a red plastic cup. Eric looked at me then much like he's looking at Ben now. "Why are you laughing like that?" he bellowed. "Are you having a neck spasm?"

I clear my throat. "What did you guys want to show me?"

Ben whips out his phone, and the Joint Task Force for Changing the Fucking Subject is all systems go. "Logan's Instagram post," he says, pulling up a photo of a sunrise with a cryptic, long-winded caption.

We're fortunate it's a Beach House thing, because Eric has an elaborate theory about the sun and Jasmine's tattoo and whether Logan's typos are a mistake or a code. I nod and make thoughtful noises at regular intervals, hoping I'm pulling off a reasonable impersonation of someone who's listening.

I shouldn't be surprised by Ben's observation about my ponytail. It feels intimate, but isn't it just factual? Does noticing things necessarily constitute an act of tenderness? I'd be able to tell if he was working. He does that thing with his tongue, and he gets too close to the computer screen and coaxes his spreadsheets in a whisper, his mouth tracing words and numbers, soft and nearly silent.

We walk straight into each other's offices now when we want to talk. No more knocking on an open door or asking if the other is busy. I show him half-finished videos and hover over his shoulder while he watches. He makes impassioned arguments in favor of certain player rotations and offensive schemes, test runs for conversations with Coach Thomas.

We don't talk about the budget cuts. That's a problem for our future selves.

The texting starts when Blake loses to the worst team in the conference. Within the first four messages we're off the subject of basketball and onto political corruption and the gymnastics meet that comes on after the game.

Annie: should we watch and discuss

Ben: Obviously. Who you got?

Annie: gotta be LSU. they're wearing bedazzled tiger stripes. you should take inspo from this look for our next game

Ben: I need to save my leotards for off days. They're hand wash only.

Annie: i'm confused about how the scoring system works

Ben: Don't bait me into talking about this unless you're free for the next four hours.

Annie: aww did you memorize the rule book because of your sister?

Ben: Memorize it? I send a letter every year listing all the ways they need to fix it.

The following night a notorious member of the House of Representatives goes viral for stating that he doesn't "believe in all that." "All that" being the entire field of mathematics, because data shows that immigration has a positive impact on the economy. Ben sends me the video one minute after I see it myself.

Annie: lol numbers aren't real

Ben:

Ben: Am I real?

Annie: not in the 5 th congressional district of arkansas

Within a couple days the new-message notifications with his name on them cease to surprise me. The texting becomes part of the natural fabric of my evenings and days off. We don't talk about it at work, which gives it a clandestine aura.

It's not that we're discussing anything exceptionally intimate: mainly TV and Sasha, the news and our families. It's the fact of the conversations themselves that makes them impossible to acknowledge, that we're having them at home when we could wait eight hours until we see each other again.

The texting changes the way we communicate with each other, each time more familiar, more comfortable. Sometimes in person the morning after a long chat, we try to talk the way we did the day before, and it doesn't feel right. We need to recalibrate the way we interact face-to-face to match the way we interact through our phones. Or maybe we don't need to. We could maintain two parallel relationships, but that's not what we do.

One day I poke my head into Ben's office. "Is three minutes too long for this video?" I ask. "I should cap it at two and a half, right?"

"Do what you want," he says with a slow, private smile. "Numbers aren't real."

That night after my shower, I'm standing in the bathroom, squeezing some of the moisture out of my hair with a towel. I grab my blow dryer from the cabinet under the sink and check my phone before I plug it in, recoiling when I see what's waiting for me. It's one long message, longer than the entire screen. To reach the top I have to scroll up.

Before I start reading, I can already tell this is something he drafted with painstaking effort. He read it and revised it and reread it. He might even have put it together in his notes app to make sure he didn't accidentally send it before it was done. My chest burns with anxious dread. Nothing good can come of a message like this.

I've been wanting to talk to you about something. It never seems like the right time but now that we've become friends (I hope?) I think I should be honest with you, so here goes.

I told you once that I'm waiting for the right time to leave Ardwyn. The truth is, I've always planned to go coach with Maynard at Arizona Tech someday. The timing isn't set in stone and he doesn't have an opening right now, but we've talked about it for years. Obviously, the stuff we talked about with Phil Coleman is weighing on me, and I'm still not sure what to do about that. But I owe it to Coach to give it a chance, see how he runs the program, and try to be a positive influence. I know you have a different opinion of him than I do and I respect that. But I don't think you can possibly understand how much he's done for me and my family. I've looked up to him for my entire adult life. He taught me what it means to be a leader. I need to give it a shot.

Anyway, this may seem sudden, but I want to be honest with you and it was starting to feel weird that I hadn't said anything.

I put the hair dryer on the counter and go to the green room. After lighting a candle, I nestle myself in the cocoon of the beanbag, watching the tiny flame in the windowsill stretch and ripple. The faint sound of the television seeps in from the apartment downstairs. Sporadic whistles and the fervent shouty voice of a commentator, a basketball game, probably the big Duke-UNC one.

The lump in my throat is so solid it's painful. It's been easy for Ben and me to pretend Maynard isn't a sticking point, because neither of us brings him up anymore. But now it's not just a source of conflict between the two of us. It matters. The idea of my friend (one I occasionally thirst after, but a friend all the same) working side by side with Maynard is sickening enough, but it's worse than that. There's no way Maynard has changed his behavior since leaving Ardwyn. If Ben joins his team, he'll be part of a culture that enables Maynard to hurt people.

I can't let that happen.

I lie there for a long time, until the fabric beneath my head is damp from my hair. Eventually my left butt cheek falls asleep, so I climb out of the chair and sit on the floor. The turf scratches the backs of my bare thighs. I pick up my phone.

"Hey," Kat says when she answers. Music blares in the background.

"Hey. Are you out?" My voice is high and wobbly.

"Nope." The music turns off. "What's wrong?"

I tell her everything, and Kat doesn't speak until I'm done. "Okay, there's a lot to unpack here. Did you know they were that close?"

"I knew he still idolized him. I knew they kept in touch. I didn't know he was going to move across the country someday to be his right-hand man."

"It's ridiculously na?ve of him to think he can go into a situation like that and fix any ethical fuckery that's going on. Maybe he's just saying he wants to be a positive influence to make himself feel better about his decision."

I comb the turf with anxious fingers. "I don't think he would do that. He sincerely believes the Phil Coleman thing was an isolated incident, or that worst-case scenario, he can stop Maynard from doing anything similar again."

Kat snorts. "Which is absurd because he was so oblivious to Fuckwaffle's bullshit he didn't even know what happened to Phil, and he was there. "

"That's how it works," I say. "Maynard shows people only what he wants them to see to get what he wants from them. And it's easy for him to take advantage of his power because everyone else feels easily replaceable."

The structure of the college sports industry breeds abuse. To outsiders, it's glamorous, and those in charge capitalize on that. A large number of people clamor for a small number of junior positions, eager to get a foot in the door, even for low or no pay. They put up with lots of things they shouldn't because they're lucky to be there, or so everyone says. They can't demand better treatment because a thousand other people not demanding better treatment would happily take their places tomorrow. Those who attain the highest positions are paid fuck-you money and worshipped like gods. The environment in many programs oozes toxic masculinity: glorifying toughness, celebrating dominance, literal and figurative locker room talk. Those who embrace it often rise to the top.

"What are you going to do?" Kat asks.

I squeeze the damp ends of my hair. "Nothing yet. But after the season is over, if we're still friends…I'll tell him. Maybe not everything, but enough."

Kat exhales. "Wow."

"Yeah."

Only a handful of people know what Maynard did, how he drove me away from Ardwyn and basketball altogether. My family, Eric, Cassie, and Oliver—that's it. I haven't told anyone else, but this isn't a difficult decision. It will be a difficult conversation, however. I've looked up to him for my entire adult life, Ben said. He taught me what it means to be a leader.

It might break him.

"Okay, so one more thing," Kat says. "And this is important. You know that what you're doing with him is flirting, right? Like, you said ‘friends' but that's not exactly what's happening here."

"Kat. Stop."

"Annie. The Rold Gold."

I made a big mistake recently, telling her Ben gives me the little bags of pretzels that come with his student center café lunch combo. "It's like when a penguin brings another penguin little pebbles because he wants to mate," she cooed.

I don't want to hear that again, so I hug my knees and grumble, "Yes, fine, I'm aware we're flirting."

"Really? Damn, I was hoping we could do that thing where you deny it and then eventually I'm proven right and I get to gloat about it."

"You must've forgotten that I'm older and wiser than you. I'm incredibly self-aware."

"What about him, is he aware you're flirting?"

"I haven't asked." I'm pretty sure he is, except when I'm certain he isn't.

"Wiseass. But no one has made a move?"

"Ugh," I groan. "Nothing is going to happen."

"Oh, I get it. This is the part where you deny it, and then eventually I'll be proven right and get to gloat about it. Do you mind repeating what you said in writing for my file?"

Kat's wrong. Nothing is going to happen, because I'm going to make sure of it. Flirting is one thing. In fact, I'd forgotten the thrilling, addictive pleasure of good banter. I can't remember the last time I felt it. I couldn't stop even if I wanted to. How close can I get, as close as I want, and no further. But I'll keep it from escalating, because I'm not a fool. There are too many complicating factors, a weight that can't be supported, that will bring the whole thing down.

After I hang up I look at the message again. A sick feeling floods my body anew, and my fingers are bloodless as I type a response.

Annie: thanks for letting me know.

Annie: now where's my sasha pic, I know you were with her today