Page 96 of Blitzing Emily

Amy called out, “Hey, Em, we gotta go. Where are you?”

Emily heard Amy’s footfalls on the stairs, and she appeared in the bedroom doorway.

“You’re not dressed yet. We’re going to be late.” Amy said.

“No shit.”

They stared at each other. Amy looked like the Sharks’ team store threw up on her. She wore a Sharks hat, a Sharks t-shirt, and a Sharks patterned knit scrunchie on her ponytail. Shiny plastic beads shaped like footballs and painted in the team colors hung around her neck, while little football earrings dangled from her earlobes. Her Keds had Sharks shoelaces. She even sported a temporary tattoo of the team logo on her cheek. The only thing on her body not branded with “Sharks” or “football” was the denim shorts she wore.

“Did you buy it all?” Emily asked. “No wonder I can’t find anything to wear, if that’s what everyone else will have on. This can’t be typical.”

“You need to wear Brandon’s jersey. I know he gave you one,” Amy said.

“It’s enough that I’m wearing his gigantic ring. I am not dressing up like it’s Halloween.”

“Everyone else wears them. Go put it on. He will love it.” Amy pulled Emily out of her closet, grabbed the jersey off a hanger, pushed it against her sister’s chest, and started yanking items out of a plastic shopping bag looped over her wrist. “You can wear that cute denim mini-skirt you have with these. I have beads, earrings, and a hat. I even have a scrunchie thing for your ponytail.”

Emily snatched the denim skirt from halfway down the pile in her closet. “I’m leaving my hair the way it is.” She stepped into a pair of cobalt-blue flats with gunmetal-gray buckles on the toes.

Amy frowned. “Camisole.” She extracted one from Emily’s dresser drawer and handed it to her. “The jersey’s a bit see-through,” she said. It wouldn’t do to flash an entire stadium full of people.

When Emily was finally dressed to Amy’s satisfaction, Amy looped beads over her head, put the scrunchie on her wrist, handed her a hat, and said, “You need to put on the football earrings.”

“No. Absolutely not.” Emily pointed at the pea-sized diamond studs in her ears. “Brandon gave these to me. He wants me to wear them. The other girlfriends and wives don’t dress themselves up like this.”

“Wait till you see them,” Amy said. “I have one word for you: Bedazzler.”

Emily tossed the scrunchie, hat, and the earrings on her bed. “I’ll wear the jersey and the beads. That’s it.”

“Comeon,” Amy pleaded. “You have to look like afan.”

“This is what I’m wearing. If you keep bugging me about it, I’ll wear a bandage dress and my new pair of five-inch heels.”

Amy heaved a heavy sigh. “You’ll wish you’d worn it all when you get there,” she warned.

“I guess I’ll have to live with that.”

Emily made a knot in the side of the jersey as Amy dragged her down the staircase, and managed to hook her handbag with one hand on the way out the door.

Amy drove like a madwoman on a good day. Today, she was even more determined to get where she was going before she and Emily missed a second of the action. She swerved around slower vehicles; she switched lanes, jabbering the whole time. Shortly after Amy skidded into a parking space, they joined the thousands of people making their way through the parking lot into the stadium.

Emily glanced around at a huge crowd of Sharks fans attired in jerseys, team t-shirts, and even a few people dressed up in old-fashioned zoot suits in the team colors. The area around the trash cans was littered with what looked like thousands of red plastic cups already.

Amy was so excited she was practically levitating as they moved along a huge concrete concourse. “We’ll go to our seats, but first, you have to see Brandon.” She pointed to the sidelines. “If we walk down the aisle closest to the field, he can see us when we get to the bottom.”

“Where is he now?” Emily scanned the guys on the field. None of them wore Sharks blue, and none of them wore Brandon’s number 99 jersey.

“They’ll be out in a minute to stretch. He’ll see you.”

They made their way down what seemed like a thousand steps to the railing only feet from the team’s bench area on the field. Emily gripped the railing and looked around. The afternoon’s heat was dissipating as the sun sank lower in the sky. A soft breeze ruffled her hair. Even an hour before the game, there was already what looked like thousands of people sitting in their seats and waiting for it all to start. The cheerleaders were already on the sidelines as well.

“Shark Babes,” Amy explained, and waved at a dark-haired woman who waved back. “That’s McKenzie. She owns the yoga studio next door to my shop.”

McKenzie not only had a gorgeous face, she also had a perfect body. Emily ignored the momentary twinge of jealousy over McKenzie’s figure as she heard a huge roar from the crowd. The Sharks ran onto the field, and Amy was jumping up and down.

Brandon spotted them almost immediately. He dropped his helmet onto the team bench, ran to the wall, leaped up, and sat on the railing in front of Amy and Emily. “How’re my two girls?” He patted Emily’s cheek. She took his hand to look at the glove, and the tape around his wrist.

“We’re great,” Amy told him.

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