Page 19 of Must Love Hockey
Oh boy. Charles would hate that.
The tickets are in Row D, and they have a face value of $130.Each. But at least I have the comfort of knowing James probably didn’t have to pay for them.
I reread the note twice, and then tuck the tickets into my wallet and recycle the note.
HeknowsI have a boyfriend, but he gave me two tickets anyway.
So what choice do I have? I pull out my phone and invite Charles to go with me.
It’s just that I have no idea whether he’ll say yes.
SEVEN
ARE YOU SOMEONE IMPORTANT?
Emily
I’m waiting outside the Brooklyn stadium for Charles.
He’s late. This is not particularly unusual. He literally will not leave his office until every one of his superiors is gone. And if they ask him for one last task? “I always say yes,” he tells me. “Always. That’s how you get ahead. There are five other guys in my program, and I am making every one of them look like a slacker.”
This is why I’m standing outside on a frigid winter night, alone, watching the subway exit for Charles’s well-dressed form.
I get it. I really do. I admire Charles so much. I always have.
But lately his job is just a drag. Because I know how Charles operates. And five years from now it will be exactly like this. He’ll be working his way up the food chain. He’ll have first-year associates that report to him, but that won’t matter. There will still be people to impress and new reasons to stay late at work.
Is it selfish to wonder why it’s never my turn? I would like—just once—to be the person he dropped everything for.
If I bring it up, I know exactly what he’ll say.I’ve only had this job for six months, Emily. I’m on probation. And he would be right, and I’d be the whiner in this scenario.
This whiner’s toes are very cold, though. And through the glass walls of the stadium, I can see all the happy fans moving slowly up the escalators toward their seats.
I pull out my phone and text him.It’s cold, so I’m going to wait for you inside the lobby. It’s mayhem in there, but you can text me when you come out of the subway, and I’ll find you.
My phone rings a moment later, just as I’m joining the line to have my bag inspected. It’s Charles. So I step out of the damn line again and take the call. “Hello?”
“Honey, where are you?”
“At the hockey game, remember?” Oh my God, hedoesn’tremember. “You can still make it.”
“No, I’m sorry. But I can’t blow off this other thing.”
My heart drops. “What other thing? If you’re running late, I can probably leave your ticket at Will Call.”
“We can’t go to the hockey game tonight. I’m sorry. And I still need you to come to this art opening with me in SoHo.”
“An art opening,” I echo. Has the man lost his mind? “We have seats in row D!”
“Honey, we justwentto a hockey game. And my client’s daughter is part of a group exhibition at a gallery tonight. It will be fun. I changed our calendar yesterday. Didn’t you see it?”
My heart thumps, and I can actually feel hot, liquid anger pumping through my veins along with my blood. “No, Charles. I didn’t see it. But if you were going to bail, you should have had the decency to say so in person, so I could have invited someone else.”
“Who?”
“I don’tknow,” I say through clenched teeth. “But I guess it doesn’t matter now, does it?”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t use the tickets,” he says. “That guy won’t know, Emily. And it’s just a hockey game.”
