Chapter Twenty-Six
BROOK HANGS UP THE phone with a school in Colorado and sighs. Now that he’s a free agent, so to speak, he’s taking calls from various programs—colleges, high schools, even a professional team that will remain unnamed, because I’m superstitious.
It’s an exciting thing for people to express interest. It’s also a little daunting. For one, there’s a lot to consider. Do we want to stay on one coast, switch to another, or land somewhere in the middle closer to our families? Also, how serious is this program in Brook’s coaching abilities? Are they really courting him, or are they just hoping to get some insider dirt on why O’Dwyer and Griggs were fired? (Apparently the fact that they were constantly losing isn’t enough of a story.)
He sighs again, this time heavier and more dramatic, which must be my cue to check in like a good, dutiful wife.
“How’d it go?” I ask while sorting through the pile of books and paperwork on my desk. I’ve been so scattered lately. Me from two years ago would have a heart attack if she saw how disorganized I’ve become. Me from two years ago also wouldn’t have waited this long to look for the business card I’d tucked into it a few weeks ago. “Did you get a good vibe?”
“They have a solid program. There’s opportunity for development, which could be fun. If I’m being completely honest, though, I’m still hoping we’ll hear from Nebraska.”
Just like Sam heard from his alma mater. He and Whitney are headed back to the Sooner State as soon as they have their baby and it’s safe to travel, which will be any day now.
“It would be nice to go home,” I say. “That would be the dream.”
“It’s probably best not to get our hopes up. Finding something at a smaller college—or even back at a high school—wouldn’t be the worst thing ever.”
“Not if it makes you happy.” I finally find my planner under a dog-marked home improvement book I was studying the other night. In my excitement, I topple over a pile of magazines. “Damn.”
“Harper?”
“Sorry.” I scoop up the magazines. There was a time when I kept this thing in better order. “I’m trying to find the card Whitney gave me for her doctor.”
It’s going to be a pain seeing a new OB/GYN here when we’ll be somewhere else in a few months. I’ll have to start the awkward dance of pap smears and breast exams with another stranger. But it has to be done. We talked it over, and until we figure out where we’re settled, we decided it was for the best to put baby plans on pause.
“That’s right,” Brook says with a hint of disappointment. “You have to see a doctor to go back on . . . you know.”
“It’s called birth control. As a former high school teacher and a coach, I wish you could say those words without clamming up. Sex education in this country is—”
“Sex education in this country is a travesty. I know, I know. But in my defense, I never taught health.”
“All the same, maybe—” I cut myself off before I go into full Harper the harper mode. He understands my stance without me ranting on about it. “Anyway, I need to visit the doctor to get a prescription for the pill or ring, or whatever the doctor suggests.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to get an appointment before Christmas? Otherwise you could go to your old doctor when we visit your parents over New Year’s.”
“She’s retired.” Even if she wasn’t, it would still be kind of weird to go back to someone who last gave me an exam when I was eighteen. I might as well go to a stranger. “I’d like to get in before then. It usually takes a couple of months for the birth control to work.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it.” Brook points to the TV screen. “Babe, the game is back on. Can’t that wait until later?”
I stare down at the planner, which I’ve just managed to flip open. I have a really good feeling I’ll find the card in here, but . . . it’s Monday Night Football. The game is about to begin. While it’s important to have your priorities in order, this time I’d say the football game wins over a gynecological appointment. At least in this instance. Brook and I both have a lot on the line for this game. We’re each up for a title—him in the Mega Ballerz and me in the Real Coaches’ Wives. Plus, I’d only get a voicemail if I called the doctor tonight. Who wants to leave that kind of a message?
“Okay.” I set the planner down on the coffee table and lean back in my seat next to Brook.
He wraps an arm around me and hands over a beer. “Want one?”
I hesitate for a moment. I haven’t drank since we started trying, but now that we’re officially putting Baby Mac on hold, I don’t suppose it will hurt.
“You might as well,” he says.
He’s right. I might as well. The show must go on. (Which was our Queen song of the week—“The Show Must Go On.” Fitting.) What’s the point of treating my body like a temple if there aren’t any inhabitants? I take the offered beer and wait for the first taste, ready to savor it. The beer hits my tongue and I wince. Maybe my month of sobriety has changed my taste—or maybe it’s a bad batch—but this doesn’t taste as good as I remember. Deciding I’ll save it for later, or maybe never, I put it aside and curl up against the wall of Brook’s chest.
“I hope we win. I’ll have the title I always wanted, and you’ll be back to your spot as reigning champion of the league. Then we can move on with our lives.”
“Will you really retire if you win tonight?”
“Maybe. I think we can both agree I wasn’t a very good manager this year.”
“I’ve seen worse.”
“But I didn’t have that much fun. Besides, isn’t it better to retire a winner? Go out on top?”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
I narrow my eyes. “What’s the other way?”
“That you’re quitting while you’re ahead, which is still quitting.”
The glare I send him only makes him laugh harder. It’s really too bad we’re not going to have a kid any time soon. Brook already has the whole dad jokes thing down well. Fortunately, my phone starts ringing, saving me from hearing what other gems he might have stashed away.
“If you’ll excuse me . . .” I wiggle my phone in his face. “I have to take this call from my publisher.”
“Your publisher. You love saying that.”
“You bet I do.” I press a finger to my lip, shushing him as I answer. “Hey, Kristen. What’s up?”
“Please tell me you’re watching the game.”
“Of course I am. It’s the final game of the fantasy football season, and my quarterback is up against my opponent’s running back.”
Like she even had to ask. I know Kristen is only a casual fan, but come on.
“Did you see the close-up on that quarterback’s wife?”
I frown. “Which wife?”
“That North guy.”
“Todd Northwood.” Brook’s eyes jump to mine curiously and I shrug. “His wife was on TV? We must have missed it. That’s nice.” Though not completely unexpected. Faye Northwood was on a TV show when we were kids—the cameras love to look for her.
“No, it’s not just that she was on TV. Did you see what she was wearing?”
“No . . .” How could I? I just told her we didn’t see the Faye cameo.
“She’s wearing a scarf and hat set.”
“Okay . . .”
“One of your hat and scarf sets.”
“Are you serious?” I drop my phone and reach for my laptop.
“What’s going on?” Brook asks, handing me back my phone.
“Faye Northwood was wearing one of the Team Stitches game day sets.”
“Seriously?” Grabbing his own phone, he punches in a couple of numbers. “I’m calling my sister.”
“Good idea.” Settling the phone back against my ear, I mutter an apology to Kristen. “How long was she on screen? Any chance we can get a screenshot from the online feed?
“I’m way ahead of you. They had her on screen for a full minute and we captured the
clip and a screen shot. Check your inbox.”
“I’m on it.”
Brook pulls the phone away from his ear, and I can hear shrilling coming from the receiver. “Amelia is pleased.”
“This is amazing.”
“I haven’t even told you the best part.”
“It gets better than our product being featured for a full minute on Monday Night Football?”
“Mmm hmm. You should check her Instagram account.”
My jaw drops open. “Did she tag us on Instagram?”
Brook’s eyes widen and, cradling his phone between his ear and shoulder, he pulls Instagram up on his tablet. “I’ve got it.”
Thank goodness I have a husband who gets me and social media.
With a few clicks—I’m going to pretend I didn’t notice that he follows Faye Northwood—he has her post on screen. It’s a picture of her and their four kids bundled up in coats and the full hat, scarf, and mitten sets. Underneath, the caption says, “Go, Daddy! Thank you for making sure your personal cheerleading squad stays warm with these fab new sets from Team Stitches. So warm. So cute. So game-day ready.”
“Oh my God.” I remember that order coming through the website. It was the day after my star-studded flight. Apparently I left an impression on Todd Northwood, too. It seems impossible, but it must have happened.
“Did you find the post?” Brook asks Amelia. He jerks the phone away again as another round of screams comes through. “She did.”
“Now check the number of followers on your Instagram and Facebook pages,” Kristen orders.
“Wow.” Brook just stares in amazement. “I wonder what’s happening on your website.”
“I’m almost scared to look.” My heart pounds in my ears, because as exciting as all of this is, if we’re suddenly flooded with order requests, there’s no way we’re going to be able to keep up with them.
“We’ll figure out a way to fill the orders,” Kristen assures me. “You have the patterns, right? We’ll just have some of our staff members help you out.”
“That would be great.” I take a deep soothing breath and pull up our website stats. Sure enough, all of our products have the automatic “SOLD OUT” running across them. I’m glad we had the forethought to put that option on there—and even happier we included the “add me to the wait list” option, too. We’d be in danger of blowing our free publicity right now. “I think we’re going to need that help.”
“It’s yours. We’re going to have to push up the announcement about your book. I’ll have our marketing people work on it first thing in the morning and maybe we can start the presales as early as tomorrow afternoon or the next day.”
“Can you do it that fast?”
“Honey, please.” Her voice has the undertone of “Are you freaking kidding me, girlfriend, we do this all the time.” “Now, I have to let you go. I need to send out messages to the team, but don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll make this work for us.”
I dumbly hang up the phone and stare down at it. Brook updates his sister on the rest of what he’s eavesdropped and promises we’ll call her back later. Setting down his own phone, he slips his arm back around my shoulders and squeezes. “Baby, I’m so proud of you.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you okay?”
I nod. “I will be. I mean, this is incredible, but I can’t believe it. Even though the proof is all right there.” I flip my laptop shut before I can panic about the growing number of people on our wait list. “How are we ever going to keep up?”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“You’re always so positive.”
“That’s my job.” He presses a kiss to my temple and moves to lean back but stops. “Hey, isn’t that the business card you wanted?”
“It’s sweet of you to try and distract me, but it won’t work.”
“No.” He points to the coffee table. “There’s a card sticking out of your planner.”
I narrow my eyes and lean forward. He’s right. There is something sticking out of the book. I give it a tug, but realize it’s clipped in. That’s right. I stapled it to one of the pages for safekeeping to help me find it. So much for that plan. I flip the planner open and read the card. Dr. Gonzaga. Whitney swears by her, which should be good enough. I wonder if I should program the number into my phone now to make sure I don’t end up losing it again. I reach for my phone but pause when I see a date circled, the date after Brook’s birthday.
The day after Brook’s birthday party . . .
“You found it. One less thing to worry about.” Brook rubs his hand up and down my arm. “Now we can get back to celebrating your awesomeness and watching the game.”
I nod absently while I stare at the date then flip back a few pages. There’s a red X there. The one I marked for the days I started my period, a habit I only just adopted. I forgot I’d done that, frankly, with everything going on the past few weeks. I return to the other page, to the one with the circle. It’s two weeks later. That must be when I thought . . .
Oh God.
“Brook.”
“What?” He tears his eyes from the screen and catches the panic on my face. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but . . .”
“But?”
The grin spreads across my face. “I think we may have missed our window on seeing a doctor about family planning.”
“You don’t think you’ll be able to get in? Maybe you can try someone else.”
“It’s not that. I’m looking at the calendar, and I realized . . . I’m late.”
Wait, if I am in fact pregnant, shouldn’t I feel a little different? I suppose I’ve been a little tired, but who wouldn’t be exhausted after the fall we had? Now that I think about it, I did feel a little nauseous after dinner last night and the beer tasted funny.
Oh God.
“Late . . .” Brook still sounds confused. He’s a smart man, but I can’t fault him for being slow on the uptake in this situation. Most of the time when I mention “late” or “lateness” it’s in reference to him staying at a practice or meeting longer than he said.
I take pity on him. “My period is late. Two weeks.”
The nearly empty beer bottle falls from his hands as his jaw drops. He tries to speak, but all that comes out is garbled nonsense.
I hand him my own beer, which I only took a sip of, thank goodness. Eyes still wide and trained on me, he takes a few gulps then sets it aside. “Are you saying you’re, that we’re . . . you know?”
“I think so.” I let out a little laugh. “I think I’m pregnant—we’re pregnant.”
“Can we . . . do something to find out for sure?”
“We could go pick up a pregnancy test.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
The sound of voices shouting draws our attention back to the screen. Todd Northwood has just connected with a receiver keeping their play alive while the clock winds down. It was straight to Brook’s player. He has the points he needs to win.
That means . . . if Todd can make one more pass, I should secure my title, too. If he can make it a passing touchdown, well, there won’t be any doubt. We’ll both be victors. It’s what we’ve both wanted all season, what I’ve wanted for three years. But right this second, it doesn’t seem like the most important thing. No, football doesn’t matter. Finding out if we’re going to be parents? That matters.
I’m about to suggest we run to the pharmacy down the street when the opposing team’s coach throws a challenge flag. Someone upstairs—a coach, not God—thinks Brook’s receiver stepped out of bounds before he caught the pass, making him an illegible receiver.
Brook and I both let out expletives then exchange sheepish glances. We look back at the screen, down at the planner, then back at each other.
“Do you mind if we wait until after the game?” I ask.
“I don’t suppose it would hurt anything.”
We’re already playing the wai
ting game on a couple of fronts. We’re waiting to find out where Brook will land a job for next season. We’re waiting to find out if Team Stitches will really have the sales boom we’re hoping for thanks to this latest, unscripted promotion. We’re waiting to find out if we’re both going to win fantasy football titles. Why not wait a few more minutes to find out if our team is about to add another player?
No matter what happens on any of those fronts, at least I have someone I can count on to help me call the right plays.
Mega Ballerz Season Recap
The games have been played, the titles won and lost. Before we bid adieu to another season of fantasy football, let’s take a look back at what this year yielded for the Mega Ballerz.
● Brook’s Bros. is back. After two seasons of failing to secure a top two victory, this once mighty juggernaut manager reclaimed his throne as league champion. With his skill and precision in picking the best possible players for his team and cultivating them into a healthy lineup week after week, it’s no surprise he easily clinched the title. So clutch.
● Beam Me Up Scotty and Rio Gio took the second and third place trophies in this year’s league with hard-fought victories in the playoffs. With the exception of Brook’s Bros., it was really anyone’s game for the silver and bronze, but these guys played their hearts out to seal the deal.
● It’s worth noting, and sad to report, that Team Harper fell the furthest this year after finishing in second last season. Something seemed off about this former powerhouse, and we can only hope she’ll rest up and come back next year ready to fight.
That’s all for now, sports fans. We hope to see you in the fall with a new year full of new possibilities.
Real Coaches’ Wives Season Recap
Sometimes a league needs fresh blood to spice things up, and that was certainly the case for the Real Coaches’ Wives this year. The league welcomed two new team managers—Team MacLaughlin and Team Reeves—who both landed on the podium after a roller-coaster season.
● Team MacLaughlin stole the gold medal this season with a series of comebacks and clever victories throughout the season. None were quite so powerful as the final win that earned her the top spot. Some might call it beginner’s luck or a rookie sensation, but we suspect this is one team manager who knew what she was doing.
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