Playing at Love

by Ophelia London

  He took the empty pizza box and folded it in half twice, then stuffed it into the tall kitchen trash can. If he could beef up the defense and teach the offense how to run the new plays, they might have a real chance. He smiled to himself. There was no way the football program would get cut. He was sure of that, no matter what Tess Johansson and her choir did.

  After consulting the clock on the wall, Jack smiled for a different reason, reached for the phone, and pressed one on his speed dial. It rang twice.

  “Hello?”

  Jack’s chest filled with warmth from simply hearing the soft, high-pitched voice. “Hi, baby,” he said, picturing Jenna’s light brown waves and her dark brown eyes, which matched his to a T.

  “Hi, Daddy!” she said, the excited squeal of an eight-year-old filling her voice.

  “How’s my little twinkle toes? You still keeping the boys away?”

  Jenna giggled. “Daddy.”

  Jack felt his heart crack open. A feeling of utter joy came whenever he spoke to his daughter. It was always immediately followed by the pain of not being with her, not properly, the way a real father—a real man—should be.

  That pain had gotten worse over the years. But now that they lived less than an hour away from each other, Jack was seeing Jenna a lot more. And if the new custody hearing went his way, he would hopefully get her every other week instead of only on Christmas and one month over the summer.

  “Did you have ballet class yesterday?”

  “Uh-huh,” Jenna answered. “I got to be in the front row.”

  “Sweetie, that’s fantastic. Will you show me your routine when you come over on Sunday?”

  “Can I bring my costumes? Please?”

  “Yes, you can,” Jack said, his voice automatically morphing into the goofy Daddy tone. “I’ll even dance with you. You can teach me.”

  Jenna squealed in delight. “Even the twirls? Promise?”

  Jack smiled and exhaled, pressing his hand over his thumping heart. “I promise, honey. So, how was your first day of school?”

  His pain melted away as he listened to his daughter run down her first day in third grade. She was in the highest reading level and wanted to learn to play the guitar. Jack sat back and closed his eyes, feeling more hopeful than he would’ve imagined possible a few hours ago.

  “And at recess, I was picked first for relays,” Jenna reported. “Ellen and Kristen are always first, but Robby picked me. And then he said he liked my shirt.”

  Jack’s smile dropped. Who was this Robby and what was he doing looking at his daughter’s shirt?

  “Is Robby in your class?” Jack asked, trying to remain calm.

  “Uh-huh. His shirt had a puppy on it, too, Daddy. And they were both sleeping, like they were brothers.”

  Jack relaxed. How malicious could an eight-year-old boy who wore a sleeping puppy on his shirt be? But then Jack remembered what he was like at eight, and he couldn’t relax completely.

  His phone beeped with call-waiting, but time with Jenna was precious and Jack wasn’t about to cut it short.

  “Are you coming to parents’ night?” Jenna asked.

  “I sure am, honey,” Jack replied. He was looking forward to finally attending every single event like that. He’d missed too many of them during the first three years of her schooling life. Not making it to even one was too many. He wasn’t about to miss another. “Your mother sent me all the information,” Jack continued. “And we’ll go out for ice cream after. How does that sound?”

  Jack chuckled, holding the phone away from his ear as Jenna squealed.

  After hearing about the rest of Jenna’s day and having a very brief conversation with Susan, Jack hung up. He stood, pleased with his day overall. Talking to Jenna always made him feel lighter than air, but also, the walk-on tryouts had been surprisingly enjoyable, despite the bad news from that morning.

  The brightest spot was Andy, the kid he’d met earlier. Other than a pretty decent throwing arm, Jack hadn’t seen any real athletic skills in him, but man, did he love football. He knew every stat in sports history, every play. Even if he managed to make it through the rest of tryouts, Andy might not become an “official” member of the football team, but Jack wondered if he could find a place for the boy, maybe doing something on the sidelines.

  Honestly, he could better picture the kid as part of the choir. This made Jack’s mind flash to Tess. He knew where her classroom was now—maybe he should drop by tomorrow, just to see how she was holding up. That was the polite thing to do, right?

  Jack sat back down at the table with his hands under his chin, thinking. Absentmindedly, he reached for the phone to check the waiting voice mails. There were three. While listening to the first one, the optimism he’d just been feeling was washed away.

  …

  They’d taken the news well, Tess thought as she closed the front door behind her. After she’d sat her parents down and told them about the budget cuts, they had been totally supportive. They were sure the choir would be saved and had listened intently when she told them about Penny and her plan for how to win at Regionals.

  At least they hadn’t mentioned losing the house, although Tess was sure that was implied. It was a tense situation. They had as much at stake as she had.

  Tess lifted her hand, pointing her clicker at her car. The horn beeped as the headlights flashed.

  “Cutting out already?”

  Tess jumped, dropped her keys, and whipped around, ready to attack. Or run.

  “Hey, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Charlie?” Tess exhaled. “What are you doing?”

  Tess’s brother chuckled and slid his hands into his jeans pockets. His hair had always been lighter than Tess’s, and since he started buzz-cutting it when he was eighteen, it looked even lighter. But the porch light lit up his blue eyes; their color had never changed.

  “I just got here,” Charlie replied. “Is it too late for dinner?”

  “Mom made a plate for you,” Tess said. “But I’m taking the leftover cake with me, so hands off.” She gripped the Tupperware container tight, not liking the dubious way her brother was eyeing it. There was a time when Charlie might’ve wrestled her to the ground for it, and she would’ve kicked him where it counts. But she was fairly certain they had both outgrown those tendencies.

  “Come back inside for a while,” Charlie suggested, stepping onto the porch. “Tell me about your first day.”

  “Can’t,” Tess said. “I’ve got a ton to do before tomorrow.”

  Charlie frowned, probably noticing the expression on her face. “Why are you so busy after one day? That’s pretty unusual, right?”

  Tess rubbed a fist into her forehead. “There’s a problem at school.”

  “Is Mac making trouble?” he asked jokingly. “Who do I need to bury this time?”

  “Hilarious.” Tess narrowed her eyes. “No, it’s something else. Pretty bad.” She dropped her bag and told Charlie all about the teachers’ meeting, the budget cut, and Joe Walker’s very competitive “noncompetition” to save one of the programs.

  “There’s no way,” Charlie said, folding his arms when she’d finished. “There is absolutely no way it will get cut. It’s ridiculous.”

  “I know, right?” Tess said, grateful for his support. “Thank you.”

  “It’s a legacy in this town.” He laughed. “I mean, can you imagine Franklin High without a football team?”

  Tess’s smile dropped. “What? Football? You think they should keep football?”

  “Well, no disrespect, Tess, but…yes.”

  “You suck!” She punched his arm. “And you don’t even really live here. You’re leaving in a few months. And then what?”

  Charlie gestured to the house. “Oh. They told you I was thinking of re-upping, didn’t they?”

  “Was it a secret?”

  “No.” Charlie went quiet for a moment. “I just wanted to tell you myself. I know you were expecting me to leave the Army e
ventually, but…” He shook his head and gazed off into the darkness. “There’s nothing else I want to do. I’m sorry,” he said, turning back to her. “I know you were counting on me to help out more, financially.”

  Tess sighed quietly. “I’ll figure something out.”

  “I’m being promoted, so I’ll be making more next year.”

  “Enough to cover us if I lose my job?”

  Charlie shook his head. “But I won’t have to deploy to the Middle East as much.”

  Tess smiled, feeling the urge to reach out and hug her brave big brother. “That’s great news,” she said. “We always worry when you’re over there. Why won’t you meet some nice girl and settle down instead of blowing into town every few months to eat Mom’s food and work on your stupid car?” Tess pointed toward the black Impala up on blocks.

  “I’ve almost got her running again,” Charlie said with a wistful smile. He reached for the Tupperware of cake, and Tess surrendered it without a fight.

  “You look more interested in that car than in the possibility of marriage,” Tess observed. Her brother was thirty-one, two years older than her. Was he ever going to grow up? “What is it with men and cars…and sports?”

  “It’s in our DNA,” Charlie explained, peeling back the plastic lid and pulling out a hunk of chocolate cake. “Males remember life events as they relate to specific ball games or cars we owned or even cars we borrowed or drove in once.” He took a bite of cake. “I remember the score of the first Pacers game I heard on the radio of that car.” He pointed toward the Impala. “And I remember the very first girl I took for a ride.”

  This made Tess think of something else. “Oh, and you’ll never guess who the new football coach is,” she said, taking her own piece of cake.

  “Who?” Charlie asked while chewing.

  She took a big bite, chewed, and swallowed. “Do you remember that summer we vacationed at the beach in North Carolina? You were about to be a senior. And I met a guy there.”

  Charlie tore off another corner of cake. “Jack something, right?”

  “Jack Marshall,” Tess confirmed. “He’s the new coach.”

  Charlie was silent for a moment, then he burst into laughter.

  “Shut up,” Tess said, punching his arm again. “Stop laughing, jerk face. It’s not funny.”

  “Au contraire, Tessa. It is incredibly funny,” Charlie corrected. “He hung around you the whole summer. I had to pull him aside once or twice to make sure nothing was going on between you two.”

  “You did not,” Tess said, feeling her cheeks getting hot with embarrassment.

  “I did. He almost took a swing at me when I hinted that you two were, ya know.” He lifted his eyebrows. “Doing it.”

  Tess’s hand flew over her mouth, mortified for her teenage self. “Charlie!”

  “He was a pretty tough kid.” Charlie rubbed his chin. “I was two years older than him and at least three inches taller. Impressive display of guts. Especially since he was so sloppy in love with you.”

  “The Jack Marshall I remember wasn’t sloppy about anything,” Tess said, mostly to herself. Then she couldn’t help picturing the Jack she saw today. “I’d never met anyone so confident…outside of Luke Perry, of course,” she added with a grin.

  “And the dream lives on.” Charlie chuckled. “And now Jack works at Franklin?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Married?”

  “He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but I—”

  “You checked out his ring finger?” Charlie laughed and Tess wanted to thump his forehead. “Classic.”

  “He was checking me out, too,” Tess defended. “I caught him looking at my legs and he touched my arm once.”

  Tess didn’t bother telling him about their first, nonverbal encounter, when their eyes had met across the teachers’ lounge, before they’d recognized each other. That memory still tingled at the back of her brain as something pure and magical. Too bad it had ended up being Jack, the boy who’d disappeared on her fifteen years ago.

  “Okay, then,” Charlie said, pulling off another bite of cake. “Before I would’ve taken a hundred-to-one odds that the football team would be saved, but if it’s that guy you’re up against, a guy you have a history with, a guy who was so in love with you once that he almost threw down…” Charlie grinned and rubbed his palms together. “Then this just got very interesting.”

  …

  Jack’s phone didn’t stop ringing all evening. He’d listened to the first few voice mails from angry, confused parents of players. But after that, he didn’t answer any calls. This was something that only a PR expert should tackle.

  And how had the news gotten out so soon? He hadn’t told anybody and was sure his staff hadn’t, either. It must’ve been one of the other teachers. Or was it Tess? Even after promising him and Walker that they would both wait, would she have called up the radio or the paper or whoever handled this kind of news? Jack didn’t think so, but really, he didn’t know Tess; he had no reason to blindly trust her. She had been honest and loyal fifteen years ago—that he knew—but he didn’t know her now.

  All he knew for certain was that she was incredibly beautiful, even when she’d been glaring daggers at him.

  He leaned back in his chair and smiled, remembering how she’d looked at him when they were standing outside Walker’s office. At one point, there had been a free strand of hair covering her blue eyes. Thinking about tucking that silky strand behind her ear made Jack’s smile broaden.

  Before his thoughts could carry him any further, he snapped himself awake.

  “Football, Marshall,” he said aloud, almost like a mantra. “Think about football—not that woman.”

  He was going to have to go on the offense if he didn’t want to get steamrolled. If parents were upset now, how would it be in four days from now during the team’s first game? And what if they lost?

  Jack couldn’t think that way; he couldn’t afford to. There was too much riding on him keeping his job. He turned off the game tape and reached for his cell.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Brad,” Jack spoke into the phone. “Hey, it’s late, I know.”

  “No worries. What’s up?”

  Jack had always been the closest to Brad out of all his brothers, even though Brad was the oldest of the three and Jack was the youngest. Something about their eight-year age difference ensured that they were never rivals. It was Brad who gave Jack his first football, and it was Brad who dragged Jack on a three-week backpacking trek through the Rockies starting the day his divorce from Susan was final.

  “Is this a good time? Are the girls asleep?”

  Brad was also the proud father of three daughters. Which was why he was grayer even than their father, which caused no small amount of tormenting at every Marshall family gathering.

  “Dude, they better be,” Brad said. “I’ve already sent them upstairs twice.”

  Jack smiled when he heard his brother exhale wearily. What he wouldn’t give to feel that exhausted after spending an evening with his own child, or children…someday.

  “What’s going on?” Brad asked. “How’s the new job?”

  “That’s why I’m calling,” Jack said, moving his phone to the other ear. “There’s a problem at my new school, a pretty big one. But I think I have an idea. I’d like to know what you think about it.”

  Chapter Five

  “I love it.”

  “You do?”

  “Seriously. It will work—I can see it.” Mac fanned her hands in front of her eyes. “I’m getting weepy just thinking about it.”

  Tess smiled at Mackenzie, who sat across from her in the teachers’ lounge the next morning. “You need to come hear this girl sing; she’s amazing.”

  Mac nodded. “I believe you. It’s going to be fabulous—like nothing the competition has ever seen.”

  “That’s the exact idea.” Tess nodded.

  “Football is so huge and barbaric in towns like this,”
Mac pointed out while stirring her hot tea. “When the public finds out it’s in danger of being cut, they won’t think twice—they’ll rally behind it.”

  “Are you trying to make me feel worse?”

  “Hang on.” Mac lifted her spoon. “I’m just thinking aloud. There has to be something else we can do. We need to let the people know—”

  “Oh, they know, all right,” Tess said, rubbing her temples. “My phone was ringing nonstop last night. I don’t know how the news got out, but I had twenty furious parents calling me.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” Mac said. “We need to get the town behind us. On our side. People need to know they have a choice.”

  “How?”

  Mac grinned. “Grass roots, babe. We need to find some journalist at the paper who has a soft spot for the arts and nothing better to do.”

  “And,” Tess said, finishing Mac’s thought, “get said journalist to write an article about what’s going on. Do you know anyone at the paper?”

  Mac shook her head. “Not really. I never read it anymore.”

  “Mac!”

  “Shh,” Mac hissed, glancing around the room, making sure no other teachers heard that. “I know I should, but I get everything I need from Twitter or The Daily Show.”

  Tess shook her head, trying not to laugh. “Aren’t you supposed to be teaching current events in your speech classes?”

  Mac shrugged, taking a sip from her mug. “I make the students do it. I always tell them they’re the ones teaching me. Ha!” She took another sip. “They have no idea.”

  “You’re so bad.” Tess laughed. “So, what do you think we should do?”

  Mac pondered for a moment, then her eyes lit up. “Field trip at lunch?”

  Tess and Mackenzie were out in the parking lot before most of the students. “We’ve only got forty-five minutes, so step on it,” Mac said as she strapped herself into the passenger seat of Tess’s car.

  “Did you have a chance to research during your free period?” Tess asked as she pulled into traffic.