Page 5 of The Progressions

His hazel eyes widened slightly. “Shay won’t run,” he mentioned. “She won’t get wet, either.”

Bathing must have been a real dilemma for her, then. “Go ahead so I can lock up,” I told him, and he did exit. I stepped out too and shut the door, getting immediately drenched before I’d evenfinished jamming in the key code with my thumb. But when I turned to leave, he was still standing there. Then he jogged next to me back to the parking lot, although I knew from watching his performance on the gridiron how fast he could run. I glanced over as we went, but his gaze was straight ahead.

I split off to go to my car and jumped inside, and I saw him get into the yellow SUV. I waited for a moment, watching through the rain, but he was very slow to back out. I left first and as I did, I noticed that the drain on the east side of the lot hadn’t been cleared and was overflowing. Iva was going to be pissed at Oren tomorrow.

I went left, toward my house, and the big car behind me turned right, toward town. That was the end of Tyler Hennessy, I thought, unless I found that earring. As I drove, my mind went to other things that were more important than the new Woodsmen player.

After all, life wasn’t only football. Just mostly.

Chapter 2

Iva stood, put her hands on her lower back, and sighed. “I guess that’s it,” she said to me. “You have everything you need.”

I nodded confidently so that she wouldn’t worry. Suddenly, her plans for maternity leave had advanced due to her doctor’s orders, and she was out of the office as of today. That meant I was now in charge. “We’ll be fine. What bad stuff ever happens here?” I asked rhetorically.

That didn’t work to calm her, and in fact, she remembered even more things to tell me. She showed me the secret log she’d been keeping of problems with the maintenance guy—I hadn’t wanted to make her upset, so I hadn’t ever mentioned the incident between Oren and the clothes dryer, so that didn’t appear on it. Iva’s spreadsheet was a list of things that he hadn’t done, hadn’t responded to, and had generally ignored in the past eighteen months that he’d been working here, even though they were part of his job description. Since he was the nephew (or maybecousin, or maybe grandson) of someone in the office superior to ours, Iva had been told that he was untouchable. But she was trying to keep track anyway, she explained, so maybe someone would finally discipline him. Better yet, they could replace him.

Oh, and just a few other issues…she was expecting to hear back from the siding contractor about a problem in Building C, and also, she thought that the landscaping company that was supposed to maintain the hedges was actually killing them, so she’d been playing phone and email tag about that. If the man in Building A complained again about his neighbor, I was to tell him that there was nothing more we could do about sound mitigation between the units and that his next step was contacting the police. She’d ordered a new lock for the toolshed, since it was broken again. We couldn’t lose any additional equipment, because didn’t I remember the trouble when the snowblower had gone missing?

There were at least thirty more last-second reminders, and then she voiced one final concern in relation to me and my past. “What are you going to do about Cody?” she asked.

“Ignore him, like I always do,” I said briskly. “I really don’t care about him. Iva, you can text me, or call, or email. I can come over to your house to discuss things, too. You live three minutes from here.”

She smiled. “I know you’ll do a great job,” she said reassuringly, which was kind and most likely untrue. She knew that I got distracted by other priorities, like secondary jobs and my dad’s issues, and she didn’t blame me for them…but they made her concerned, so she was actually trying to reassure herself. Ivahad vouched that I could handle things, so if I messed up, it would make her look bad and maybe weaken her position in our company. And that did make me a little nervous, because her boyfriend was stupid, and she and stupid Dominic depended entirely on her employment here.

On the other hand, our condo complex was a loser, despite the famous tenants who’d chosen it in the past. It was mostly vacant because the rent that our company charged was way too high. They had also tried to sell the units, but had also overpriced them. There were currently more renters than owners, which made prospective buyers feel like it wasn’t a good deal and they needed to look elsewhere. But there also weren’t enough renters to make this complex a profitable venture, not by my rough calculations. I’d been at my job long enough to realize that no one with any power was doing anything to make significant changes, either.

Anyway, the point was that no one cared too much about what we were doing here—at least, I didn’t think so. I hoped not.

“Ok,” Iva said, and she looked around the small office. Her desk was mostly empty, now. “You can text, call, email, or come over to my house whenever you have a problem.”

“Yes. I just said that,” I reminded her, and she stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry.

“I’m not really that worried about you,” she told me. “I’m thinking about the baby, too. And Dominic told me that the college is going to reject his proposal for a position there. Themeeting didn’t go well.” She shook her head. “They’re so shortsighted.”

That was the same thing she said about every employment opportunity that her boyfriend had: it never went well, but it wasn’t his fault. I had to disagree, because most of what stupid Dominic was doing to find a job seemed useless to me. He certainly didn’t go about it in the normal ways, like looking for openings, applying online, or hitting up friends and relatives for help. His latest idea was to become a consultant for Emelia Schaub College, our local institution of higher learning. But from what Iva had explained to me, his idea of a consultant apparently meant someone who provided opinions at meetings but then did nothing else, nothing at all, while getting paid a lot. Since he’d never had a job that lasted for more than a few weeks, I wasn’t sure why they would have cared what that guy thought—but somehow, he’d managed to talk himself into a meeting with someone on the college’s board. Stupid Dominic was smooth, which was how he’d also managed to talk Iva into being with him even though she was clearly deserving of better.

“You ready to go?” she asked, and I nodded. I was very ready. She needed to head home and put her feet up, but I was going to Woodsmen Stadium. It was Fan Day! A lot of local businesses shut down so that their employees could attend, and we were definitely turning out the lights in the leasing office. I would hang a sign on the door: “Closed due to Fan Day. Go Woodsmen!” I probably wouldn’t even get many voicemails, since the tenants would be at the stadium, too.

“This is the first one I’ve missed since I moved up here,” she said wistfully. “I just can’t take the crowd. I can’t stand the heat, the standing around, and the walking for miles.”

When she put it that way, it didn’t sound very fun—but it was. It really, really was. “I always take a lot of pictures and I’ll send them to you, too,” I promised. “Next year, you’ll escort the baby for his first time,” I added, pointing to her stomach. She nodded and reluctantly turned off the lights as I taped up the “closed” sign, but she looked around the office again before she shut the door.

“It’s going to be fine,” she assured me and herself.

I was so ready to go that I would have said and done just about anything to get her moving, but I forced myself to stay calm. “If you want, we can talk through stuff again,” I suggested, but in my mind I willed her to say no to that. No, no, no…

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sure that you want to get over there.”

I did. As I’d told Tyler Hennessy on his tour, one of the biggest draws for the Woodsmen players about our complex was its proximity to the stadium. But on a day like today, when everyone and their brother was going there too, it took me forever to arrive. The sun was high in the sky when I got out of my car and hurried with the big crowd toward the huge building. I didn’t want to miss seeing the Wonderwomen cheerleaders perform, and I needed to get in line to meet the players. They sat at tables in a cavernous room inside the stadium, and it was always a madhouse. After that, I’d take another tour of thebuilding, which I also did every year, and I had to document everything.

The starters were always at the front of the big room, so I saw them first when it was finally my turn to enter. Noah Boone, Seyram Adiang, Jake Koval, and Jory Morin were there, four big bodies on the offensive line. I also saw my favorite running back, Karim Cisco, and the cornerback who always got the start, Edwin Hill. He was awesome. Kellen Karma, the wide receiver, was speaking seriously to a fan and her son.

And there was the new tight end, the guy who’d replaced César Hidalgo after he’d delayed his retirement for a few seasons, unable to totally give up the game. Tyler Hennessy sat at a table decorated with Woodsmen orange accessories and today he was dressed more suitably for the hot weather (although it was nicely air conditioned in here). A huge crowd surrounded him and the Woodsmen employees were doing their best to keep things orderly and respectful as people jostled ever closer.

Hennessy wasn’t really talking to the fans while he signed jerseys, balls, pictures, and other memorabilia. His summery outfit included sunglasses over his eyes, although we were now inside. They made it difficult to read his expression but the slight turndown of his full lips (and the way he kept turning his head to yawn) made me think that he was both unhappy and bored, even with all the excitement around him. Who could have felt that way on Fan Day? It meant that the season was starting soon, all that emotion, all that love for the team! Didn’t he feel it?

He yawned again. Maybe not.

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