Second Chance: A Military Football Romance

by Claire Adams

  What could I say to that? He was the one footing the bill for the apartment, so there wasn’t much arguing I could do. He and my mother already didn’t approve of me majoring in art; where was the money in that? That’s what they both wanted to know—neither of them saying, of course, that only the really talented or really lucky people ever made good money in art. Neither of which they thought I was, though they didn’t come out and say it.

  But anyway. Tara. I had planned to give her a call a few days after I arrived on Cape Cod, to give myself a little bit of quiet time, because anyone who’d ever met her knew that Tara was anything but quiet. I figured I’d check out a few art galleries, treat myself to a latte and a new book, and spend a few mornings at the beach, zoning out to the sounds of the waves and the seagulls.

  I’d only just pulled into the gravel driveway when my phone went off. It was Tara. I let it go to voicemail, only to get a text message a few seconds later:

  Call me the second you arrive!

  And just like that: instantaneous guilt. There was no reason for it, but I was already feeling bad for not calling her back. I turned the key in the ignition and sat there for a moment. Tara was just one of those people who was really good at getting what she wanted. She lived in New York, but our fathers had been playing golf together for about as long as we’d been alive. Her parents had a summer house a quarter mile from ours, and Tara and I had, by default, spent our summers growing up together.

  If I didn’t call Tara back now, she’d probably end up driving by and seeing my car, or, she’d keep calling/texting. I sighed and picked up the phone. So much for a few days of quiet.

  “Chloe!” she exclaimed. “Are you here?”

  “Just got in,” I said. I got out of the car and went around to the trunk to get my suitcase. I could at least start unpacking while we talked.

  “I’ve got impeccable timing!” I could practically hear her grin.

  “Yeah, you do—I mean, I literally just pulled in.”

  “Well, that’s perfect. That means you haven’t made any plans for tonight, right? Don’t let your mom talk you into going to that wine tasting tonight. My mom already tried to convince me that it would be exactly how I wanted to spend my Friday night, but honestly, that’s the last thing I feel like doing. And you’re 21 now! We can actually go to a bar or something.”

  I’d turned 21 back in April, but I still hadn’t been to a bar. Pathetic, I know, but I’d been so busy with school that there just hadn’t been any time. And I knew Tara would be dragging me out to all the bars and clubs she could this summer—she’d had a fake ID since she was 18 and knew all the best places to go.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  I walked up to the side entrance and went inside. My parents’ summer house was the sort of place you’d expect to see in some sort of luxury magazine, and I’d always felt like something of an imposter when I was here, despite the fact that I’d been coming here most of my life. The house was spacious and airy, with big windows looking out onto Oyster Harbors. My mother didn’t work, but she did have an eye for interior decorating, and liked to say that if she were to ever enter the workforce, she’d be a design consultant. In the meantime, though, she was more than satisfied to tastefully furnish the summer home here and their apartment in New York.

  “What did I have in mind?” Tara repeated. “Well, quite a lot, actually!”

  “We do have the whole summer ahead of us—we don’t have to cram everything into one night,” I said, already feeling tired. She was one of those people who just seemed to have an endless supply of energy.

  “I know we don’t have to do everything in one night, but we need our first night to be something spectacular, just to set the tone. Okay? And you better believe I’m going to get laid—I saw on Facebook Michael is still in Paris with that bitch, apparently still having the time of their lives. I need to meet a guy who’s even hotter than Michael and post a shitload of pictures so he can see that I’m completely over him and have moved on to better things.”

  “Michael was an ass,” I said. “And you’re better off without him. And why are you Facebook-stalking him, anyway?” I’d never been so relieved to hear that someone had been broken up with as I was when Tara called to tell me Michael had dumped her. He’d spent part of the summer with her last year, and there was something incredibly unsettling about him, despite his refined manners and fashion model looks. He was the sort of guy my own parents hoped I’d end up with—a fact that they’d brought up endlessly last summer.

  “I’m not stalking him,” Tara said, a hint of indignation in her voice. “The photos popped up on my feed and I checked them out. She’s hot, but not that hot. Anyway. You know how competitive Michael is; I just need to find someone better-looking than him and sleep with him and that’ll be that.” She sounded infinitely optimistic, like it would be no trouble at all. Actually, for her, it probably wouldn’t be. “Enough about him. You and I are going out tomorrow night. Don’t make any other plans. We’re going to properly celebrate your 21st.”

  “I’ve been 21 for months now.”

  “I know that, but I bet you didn’t even go out to a bar. Am I right?”

  I sighed. “You are.”

  “So, I’ll come get you around 7, okay? We’ll do dinner and then drinks and then go clubbing or something. Wear something cute. This is going to be the best summer ever; I just know it! See ya!” She hung up before I could respond, or remind her that I didn’t own anything that she’d categorize as “cute” for a night out on the town.

  There was a note on the marble countertop in the kitchen, in my mom’s flowery cursive: At the yacht club. Your father’s golfing. Will be back later this afternoon. Alicia made some snacks that are in the fridge. Xo, Mom

  I crumpled the note up and tossed it into the trash. No doubt the snacks that Alicia made were something totally decadent and delicious, but I’d always felt weird eating food that had been prepared for me. It sounded strange, considering that my parents had employed someone to cook our meals for most of my life, but if I were to open the fridge and start eating whatever snacks Alicia had made, I’d feel overwhelming guilt because—wasn’t I more than capable of preparing my own snack?

  I left the kitchen without eating anything, though, and went up the stairs and down the long hallway to my bedroom. Tara liked to give me a hard time about feeling guilty over having wealthy parents and a privileged upbringing, but it was something that had bothered me for a long time. But I also knew enough not to talk about it, because no one wanted to hear that sort of thing, and people would just sort of roll their eyes and think, Oh, poor little rich girl, which was exactly the sort of sentiment that I was trying to avoid. And it wasn’t as though I felt guilty enough about it to take a vow of poverty or not accept my father’s offer to finance my apartment and tuition for college. In a way, I guess I was a hypocrite, and that was maybe worse than being from a wealthy family. Tara made no apologies for it, spent her parents’ money freely, and enjoyed every bit of being from the upper class. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that wished I could just be like that, too.

  I left my suitcase at the foot of the bed and looked around my bedroom, which hadn’t changed much since I was a kid. The few decorations that adorned the eggshell-white walls had been chosen by my mother because they’d been timeless (so she said, and neither of us had changed them as I’d grown up). In a way, being in this room felt as though I were stuck in some sort of time capsule that 10-year-old me might have put together. There was the desk in the corner that I rarely sat at, and a four-poster bed with a canopy and a handmade quilt purchased from an artisan crafter at the county fair. The room could’ve been featured in Cape Cod Magazine or something; it was tasteful and pretty, but anonymous in that it lent no clues about the person who inhabited it.

  I caught sight of myself in the mirror above the dresser. I thought about what Tara had said on the phone: This is going to be the best summer ever! She
said that every year, and I knew, if you asked her, every summer was the best summer ever—that is, until next summer rolled around. For me though, summers had basically amounted to hanging out with Tara, hanging out with my parents, and wondering just what it was that I was going to do with my life. Tara didn’t share that concern; so long as her parents had money, she knew exactly what she was going to do with her life: whatever she wanted. At the end of last summer, we parted ways, me heading back to art school, her back to New York, but only for a little while before it was on to an extended vacation in Europe and then a winter out at her parents’ ski lodge in Vail. And if she got sick of Vail, she could just ask her parents and they’d buy her a ticket wherever she wanted to go. Last year it had been Ibiza; this year she’d already mentioned the possibility of Thailand.

  But maybe Tara was right; maybe I could make this the best summer ever, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what that would mean. I’d spent my whole life being the good girl, (mostly) doing exactly what my parents wanted—I deserved to have a little fun, too, didn’t I?

  The girl looking back at me in the mirror was wearing a pair of old cut-offs and a white T-shirt splattered with old paint. I squinted, trying to see myself as someone else other than the same old person I was used to, but I couldn’t. It was just me. Same old me that it had always been.

  “Even if you just do one thing you wouldn’t normally do,” I said out loud, “that will be something.”

  I felt a little foolish talking to myself out loud like that. That’s what crazy people did: ladies with wild hair and outlandish clothes and 30 cats waiting for them back in their apartment. But still. There was something comforting about hearing the words out loud, even if I was just saying them for my own benefit. And even though I had no idea what that one thing I wouldn’t normally do might be, it seemed like a good goal.

  Chapter Three

  Graham

  Saturday morning was one of those nice, early summer days—warm but not humid, no annoying, biting insects, a refreshing breeze every once in a while. I met Todd down at the conservation area we rode at most often. He showed up in full kit, and of course he couldn’t resist giving me shit about my baggy shorts and T-shirt.

  “You heading to the skate park after this?” he asked.

  He wouldn’t be running his mouth so much once we got out on the trail, though. For unknown reasons, I was particularly adept at this style of bike riding, despite not doing any training for it or even using the “correct” equipment. It was fun, I didn’t have to wear Spandex, and I liked the rush it gave me to be careening through the woods, sometimes at 20-plus miles per hour.

  There was also a point when you had pushed yourself as far as you might have thought you could physically, when your mind would just sort of turn into this blank slate and your body would take over. That exhaustion you felt would completely disappear, and you’d be able to go harder and faster than you would’ve thought possible. It was a sort of magic, really, and just the possibility of obtaining the feeling was enough to get me back on the bike again and again. But I also rode because it kept me out of trouble.

  We turned onto a fire road, which was wide enough for us to ride next to each other. Todd slowed until I’d caught up and we were side by side.

  “So, did you call Amanda?” he asked.

  “Dude! You just gave me her number last night. No, I didn’t call her.” I reached down and pulled my water bottle out of the cage and took a big sip. “I’m actually not going to, either.”

  Todd gave me a hurt look. “Why the hell not? She’s hot. You’d be a fool not to. She’s way hotter than Danielle. What’s gotten into you, lately? Are you having some sort of weird, quarter-life crisis or something?”

  “What the fuck is a ‘quarter-life crisis’?”

  “It’s exactly what it sounds like, except it’s also total bullshit because no one should be having any sorts of crises when they’re in their mid-20s, because that’s the prime of your fucking life! So get out there and get laid, dammit!”

  “You know, I appreciate your concern and everything, but I’ve actually been thinking about it—”

  “That’s your first mistake—this isn’t something you’re supposed to psychoanalyze. If you think about it too much, you’re going to start getting all introspective and shit, and the next thing you know, you’re going to be writing poetry or fronting some awful emo-core band. Where’s your phone? Call her right now. Hell, if you won’t, I’ll call her and set it up. Do you see what I’m willing to do for you? I’ve got a date tonight, too, actually—this chick Melanie. And am I over here, analyzing every detail about it? Fuck no. Because if I started to do that shit, it would ruin it. It just would. So, I suggest you stop it, too, and just call Amanda.”

  He wasn’t going to lay off, I could tell, so I responded by pedaling faster. We were side by side, until I started to pull ahead, which Todd responded to by pedaling fast himself. We had about half a mile to go before we reached the turn off for the singletrack, and I usually let Todd set the pace, but I knew if I pushed it right now, I could beat him there. Also, he’d have to exert himself so much he’d be forced to stop talking, so I shifted into a higher gear and let loose.

  “Fucker,” I heard Todd grunt as I pulled away. “Goddammit, Graham, you know I don’t like riding like this when we’ve got a race coming up.”

  *****

  When Todd and I were done with the ride, I was famished, so I took myself out to eat, because the last thing I ever felt like doing after a long ride was cooking some elaborate meal. The place I liked to go was called Laura’s. It was a little breakfast and lunch joint that was open year-round, but mostly overtaken by the tourists during the summer. The locals stayed away until after Labor Day, but I still went there after every ride. It was also right across the street from Ocean View Realty, which was where all the rich people went to get secure their summer rentals.

  The proprietor of Ocean View was Craig Oliver, father of yours truly. Though I didn’t know if he even knew that; I myself didn’t find out until freshman year of high school. Up until that point, I’d always assumed my father had died. I sensed that it just wasn’t a topic to bring up with my mother, and she let me believe he was dead. I wasn’t sure what changed the day she told me he was actually alive and well and prospering right here in town.

  Seeing as he’d never been a part of my life, it seemed silly to think that he’d want to start now. I wondered why my mother didn’t go after him for child support, as she was constantly in need of money, no matter how many “loans” I made to her, fully knowing she would never be able to pay me back. If anything, my father was probably relieved she never tried to get him on the hook for helping her raise this son of his—it would be easy to be embarrassed by my mother, especially if you were a successful businessman like he was. Still, it didn’t stop me from being curious about him, though I hadn’t approached him and honestly didn’t have any clue if he even knew I existed.

  I was just draining the last drops of orange juice from my glass when my phone started to vibrate. I looked at the screen and sighed. It wouldn’t be a Saturday morning without a call from my mother, who, no doubt, was going through some sort of diabolical, personal emergency. I picked up the phone, if only because she’d keep calling incessantly until I did.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Graham! Thank God you picked up. Are you busy? You won’t believe what happened to me last night—I was just leaving ... well, never mind where I was just leaving, that doesn’t matter ... I went to get into my car and it wouldn’t start. It just wouldn’t start. And I hadn’t left the lights on or anything like that. So, now my car’s just sitting there. I had to hitchhike home last night.”

  “Why didn’t you call Wade?”

  “I tried, but he didn’t answer. He’s been so tired lately, he’s been working double shifts because that asshole boss of his fired Kenny and refuses to hire anyone else—”

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “I don’
t actually need the whole story. So what do you want me to do? I can drive down there in a little bit and give you a jump if you want. But you’re going to have to tell me where the car is.” I already knew where the car was, but there was always a miniscule part of me that was hoping she might say it was somewhere respectable—say, the grocery store or the laundromat.

  “It’s ... it’s at The Finery.” She sounded like a petulant child. “And I don’t need you to give me any shit about it, okay? I’ve got to make money, too, you know. We’ve all got bills to pay. I’m just like anybody else, trying to make ends meet.”

  Don’t let the name fool you—The Finery was about as seedy a place you could get, a strip club masquerading as a tavern/gentleman’s club. My mother had worked there my entire life (and was probably where she met my father), though now that she was in her mid-40s, had been demoted to waitress.

  “What happened to applying for the job at town hall?” I said. “The one that Lauren told you about.”

  My mother laughed. “Oh, I checked out the application. It was about five pages long. Wanted to know all this personal stuff. Which is fine by me—I’ve got nothing to hide—but then it was also asking about past experience and everything. And trust me, Graham, I know some of the women that work in the town hall, and they don’t want to hear anything about the past experiences that I’ve had. It just wasn’t the right fit for me. You can understand that, can’t you? It’d be like me trying to make you work somewhere that you just didn’t fit in. You would hate it. How is business going, anyway?”

  “It’s fine. Listen, I’m not at the house right now, but I’m going to head back there in about half an hour. I’ll get my truck and then I’ll come pick you up and we’ll go jump your car. I don’t know why no one offered to give you a jump last night—oh wait, no, I do; everyone was probably way too wasted.” The patrons of The Finery were less than stellar characters, and I wasn’t looking forward to going over there, even though the worst of them wouldn’t be out until much later this evening.