The Last Whistle

by Jamie Bennett

  And he sounded sincere.

  “I accept your apology,” I said, less grandly than I wanted to sound, but probably less graciously than he might have expected. My hand really, really hurt. “I’m going to go ice this. You should probably put something on that, too,” I said, gesturing around my own eye to demonstrate the place I meant. “You look like a boxer.”

  “I’m a football player,” he told me. “For the Woodsmen.”

  “I heard,” I answered casually, and I watched the surprise on his face. Yes, I wasn’t going to freak out about that. But then I had a terrible realization. “I guess that means you’re staying here through the football season. That goes until, like, winter?”

  “Not much of a Woodsmen fan?” he asked, and then broke out into the smile that put the sun above us right to shame. “Yes, it goes until, like, winter. Into next year, if we’re lucky. This may be our year to win the league championship. I’d like to get one, before…” He shook his head. “Were you hoping that I’d leave?”

  Well, he was pretty astute. “It’s your house,” I said generously. Wherever he wanted to pretend the property line was.

  “It is now. I’m all moved in,” he agreed. “It’s a little, uh, weird in there.”

  “Oh, yes, the Feeneys were nuts,” I said, nodding. “Completely crazy. They tore down a sweet little cottage and put up that…thing.” I barely held in the shiver of revulsion. “They designed it themselves. And they had an obsession with egress,” I continued. “They wanted a lot of ways to get out of the house in case of an emergency.”

  “Is that why there are so many doors? And staircases?” he asked. “Four staircases on the inside of the house, including one in the dining room that leads to the master bathroom,” he noted. “There are seven or eight in total, counting the ones outside.”

  I shrugged. “As I said, they didn’t have the help of a professional architect.” I remembered my dad commenting that the builders had cackled with laughter the entire time they had worked there. “It was their dream house. I thought they’d be there forever, and I certainly never imagined that anyone else would have the bad taste and lack of sense to buy it.”

  “Right,” he said, frowning at me again. “Bad taste and lack of sense. Great to see you again, Hallie Holliday. Next time I run into you, I hope I’m wearing my pads and helmet.”

  Well, if he needed to suit up to confront a woman half his size…but still, I frowned a little too, as he turned and walked away, sorry that we had ended things like that. I hadn’t meant to insult him, just like I hadn’t meant to hit him, especially not when I had decided to follow my friend Gaby’s advice and try to find an amicable resolution to whatever lot line issues he had.

  But I was interested to see that I had been right, and that the view from the back with his wet bathing suit…well, it was enough to say that I could understand perfectly why Melanie Harmon had wanted to take pictures when she had spotted him through her binoculars.

  Ok, ok, Hallie, I told myself. There was absolutely no excuse for staring at another human being like he was a mindless piece of meat. That was totally inappropriate, even if it was the most mouth-watering, delectable piece of meat I had ever seen in the twenty-four years of my existence. The most beautiful, breathtaking, decadent, delicious…

  Ok, Hallie! Enough! I went into my house to ice my busted knuckles and to really get dressed, which included some serious work with my flat iron, because I had managed to get myself a job interview in the afternoon. And I needed a job, a lot, anything to tide me over until I could go back to Chicago and re-start my life there. The bookshop would sell, and that would help, but in the meantime, I had to have some income stream to get the immediate situation back under control—and by that I meant, enough money to buy groceries. Like coffee filters, because the DIY one I’d made out of the towel really hadn’t worked, and maybe the grounds were fiber-filled, but they were surely disgusting in your mouth.

  Yes, I’d get a job as a bridge until I could sell the building, as much as it would physically hurt to sign those papers, and then I’d go back to Chicago to resume the life and career that I’d left behind. The fun, exciting, good life, the one I missed. I worked some magic on my ponytail so that it didn’t resemble a bush and went to my interview.

  “What?” I asked an hour or so later. I leaned over the booth at the diner. “Excuse me?”

  “Oil,” the woman repeated. “What’s your experience with it?”

  “Um, I’ve looked at a few oil and gas companies in my old investment job, but that wasn’t really the sector I covered. I mostly did retail and also some health care,” I answered, and then we sat, silently staring at each other for a moment.

  She cleared her throat before continuing, choosing her words carefully. “My interest for the purposes of this interview is in your experience with oil in a deep fryer. That would be your, uh, sector here. Not only the frying, but also cleaning the machine.” She studied me harder. “Most of our employees are too young and I can’t trust them with it. But you’re old enough, and you look sturdy,” she said doubtfully.

  “Thank you,” I answered, my voice chilly. Yes, I was old and sturdy. Exactly what every woman dreamed of being.

  She looked down at my résumé on the table between us. It now had a little ketchup stain on the corner. “Your CV isn’t like many that I see. Actually, I don’t see many at all, since we usually hire kids from the high school,” she explained, and I nodded. I remembered that, while I had gone straight to the bookstore after classes ended, Gaby and a few other girls had headed here to the diner after their cheerleading practice. They had stood at the front at the register or sashayed around in short shorts or yoga pants as waitresses. Perhaps they hadn’t been sturdy enough for the deep fryer.

  “You went to college, graduated summa cum laude. You worked at Atontado Capital Partners after that,” the woman continued, reading down the typed page. I’d had to go to the library to print it before I came here because I was out of ink, and I didn’t have the thick, linen paper I’d used to get my job in Chicago with Atontado.

  “What did you do as an ‘analyst?’” she asked me, skimming what I’d detailed about my former job.

  “I…it doesn’t really matter. Can you show me the deep fryer? Is there some kind of handbook I could study before I use it?” I asked.

  She slid out of the seat to stand. “I’ll call you about the job,” she told me, and smiled for the first time since we’d sat down at the diner’s battered booth. It looked like sympathy, rather than a “you’re hired” expression. Chin up, Hallie, I reminded myself. This could still work out! But then she grimaced a little and also shook her head, which definitely didn’t bode well. “I’ll tell you straight, I don’t know if this is the place for you,” she admitted.

  “I need a job,” I told her baldly. “Any job. I need money. Now.”

  “What about…” She thought for a moment. “What about tutoring down at the learning center? They’re always looking, even in the summer. It’s part-time but it pays better than here.”

  “I didn’t see any openings listed,” I said. “I’ve looked everywhere and that wasn’t on any of the help-wanted sites.”

  “They’re careful about who they hire because they’ve had some duds, but my brother’s ex-sister-in-law runs it and she was in the other day, asking if I knew anyone. Go on down and tell her that Patty sent you. I’m Patty,” she clarified.

  “Yes, thank you. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. Um, I’m assuming that this means that I won’t be getting the position here with the deep fryer?” I tried to look sturdier.

  “I pretty much decided when you walked in, tripped on the welcome mat, and knocked over the bin of the kids’ crayons that I couldn’t trust you back in the kitchen,” she explained. “Too many hot surfaces and sharp objects. I really can’t risk the liability.”

  My face flamed like I was currently working the fryer. “I’m not usually so clumsy.” Liar! “Thank you for the
advice, Patty. I’ll go over to the tutoring center now.”

  I walked very carefully into that building, delicately placing each high heel in front of me. It had been a while since I’d worn them, that was the reason for the problem I’d had coming into the diner when yes, I’d tripped a little. And yes, there had been a lot of crayons on the ground afterwards. In fact, the last time I’d had these particular shoes on my feet was my last day of work in Chicago at Atontado Capital Partners. I had handed in my letter of resignation to my boss, and since it was the first time I’d ever quit a job, I hadn’t been sure what to expect. It certainly hadn’t been Mr. Lomperd saying, “Two weeks? No, you’ll go now. I’ll call security to take you out.” That had been a uniformed man who’d walked me to the train with a carboard box of my belongings. He had been pretty nice—the security guard, not my boss. Come to think of it, I’d tripped up the steps to the L that day, too.

  “I’m Hallie Holliday here to see Linda Koepfer. It’s my real name, not a nom de plume,” I informed the girl at the reception desk.

  “Huh? A what?” she asked, but she directed me to her manager’s office by jerking her thumb to the left. “Linda, here’s someone coming,” she hollered helpfully towards my back as I walked with mincing steps down the hallway.

  “Seriously?” the manager, Linda, asked as she also looked at my CV a few moments later. She brushed a little with her pinkie at the ketchup stain from the diner’s table. “I’m glad Patty sent you our way, but I’d say you’re overqualified. English Literature and Applied Mathematics degrees from Northwestern? And you were accepted to which business schools?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said quickly. “I decided not to go to graduate school. I came back here to take over my family business and now…now I need a job.” Part-time or not, I had searched on my phone in the library parking lot on the way over here and had found out that this would pay better than anything else I’d applied for locally. And it was something. I needed something to work out for me.

  She frowned a little at my résumé, and after my poor showing at the diner interview, my heart sank along with her lips.

  “I’ll be a very dedicated employee. I’ll make these kids learn!” I informed Linda, and her eyes jerked up to meet mine. “No, I’ll lead them and guide them, not make them,” I amended. “I meant to say that I loved learning, myself. I loved studying in high school and college, and I know I would have loved business school. I’ll really do my best to impart that to the students here. To help them to learn, and also to love it.”

  “Do you know why most of these kids are at our center?” she asked me. “They’re required to be, by the schools or by the family courts. They don’t have a choice, is what I’m saying. And many of them, most of them, aren’t very happy with it. A lot of them come from very difficult situations, and school is just one of their problems.” She sighed. “The least of their problems.”

  I must have looked concerned, because she quickly explained more. “I’m not saying that you’d be counseling them or offering anything other than support with their academics, but you should be clear about their circumstances.”

  The circumstances I was clear about were my own: I had exactly $104.58 in the bank, I had two mortgages on my cottage and one more on the bookstore building, and I wanted this higher-than-minimum wage job where I could wear jeans, apparently, and never again force my feet into these awful heels. Working part-time here would give me plenty of hours to fix up my cottage, and also for me to focus on my real job search, the one that would get me back to my career and back to Chicago.

  And how hard could this tutoring be? High school had been easy—the actual school part, anyway. I’d definitely struggled in other areas (like friends, sports, and boys), but that wasn’t what I was going to be dealing with here. Linda had just told me that I would only be offering academic support, and academics were my jam.

  I spotted more stains on the résumé she was holding, which looked like actual jam from the table at the diner. They really needed to wipe down those booths better. Linda looked at the paper too and opened her mouth, but before she could speak, desperation made me beg.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to be a success. To help the kids here,” I said. “Please. I’ll be a great tutor.”

  “I don’t see how I couldn’t hire you,” she said, and I had a job.

  ∞

  “My treat.”

  “No.”

  “Is this because that last time at Ginger’s, you spilled the waiter’s tray all over yourself?” Gaby asked me.

  “I was not to blame for the fact that the waiter dropped all those drinks! He was holding the tray over my head and I happened to move my hair—which you made me take down out of the ponytail, by the way, so it was also your fault,” I pointed out to her. “I was sorry it tickled his hands, but as a professional, he should have been able to keep his tray upright.” It had been awful. Because not only had I been soaked with liquor, those five glasses falling on my head had hurt, and there had been a huge commotion which led to me slinking, dripping, out of the bar. I could never return to Ginger’s Tavern again.

  “Your hair didn’t tickle him. It reached up to his eyes and blinded him,” Gaby said, tilting her head to look at my (now) neat ponytail. “Maybe you should keep it back tonight.”

  “How I wear my hair is irrelevant, because I’m not going out. I’m staying—”

  “Come on, Hallie!” she interrupted, and reached past me into my closet, pulling out another shirt. She frowned at it and put it back. “You act like you’re a hundred years old, huddled up here alone with nothing but a pile of old books to read. Come out to the Silver Dollar and enjoy yourself for a night. What is this?” she asked, staring perplexedly at one of my sweaters. “It’s big enough for two of you.”

  “I like that sweater, and I like my books. I’m perfectly happy to stay here and read them. Alone,” I retorted, but then I sighed. “Why are you doing this? Why do you want me to come with you so much?” Sure, Gaby and I had been friends in high school—or maybe “friendly” was a better term. She’d had her crowd, all of them popular cheerleaders and other pretty girls, and that group certainly hadn’t included me. And now, we were way past high school, but she still had a major social life going on. It was nice that she wanted to include me in it, but I didn’t entirely understand why.

  “Why not?” Gaby responded. “We always have fun. We even did the last time we went out, before you made the waiter pour the drinks on you.” Last winter when I’d come home, we’d run into each other at Martha’s grocery store as she bought a bottle of wine and I had a jar of generic peanut butter, and Gaby had insisted that we go out for coffee. It had led to us hanging out more, and yes, I’d had fun with her. Maybe we had only been acquaintances in high school, but maybe after the past few months, we were actual friends.

  “Also, I feel bad,” she admitted. “You came back here and your squad is all gone.” She paused and tilted her head again, curious now. “Who was your best friend in high school, anyway?”

  My dad. My dad was my best friend, always, I immediately thought, and turned toward my closet so Gaby couldn’t see the tears in my eyes. I cleared my throat. “I don’t know, Sarah Hickley?”

  “Sarah Hickey?” Gaby chortled, and then put her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, it was just really unfortunate that with a name like that, she let Jackson Brouwer go to town on her neck right before yearbook pictures. No amount of makeup…”

  “She was very nice,” I said severely.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know her except because she was famous from the hickey picture, but I’m sure you’re right, and she was a very nice person,” Gaby said solemnly. “What’s she doing now?”

  “Um…” Honestly, I hadn’t given Sarah Hickey—Hickley—one thought since the last time I’d seen her, six years before on the hot June day when we’d graduated and I had given my valedictorian speech. “She’s great,” I answered vaguely, and genuinely hoped that wa
s true.

  “I’m glad. I’m really sorry I made fun of her name,” Gaby said, and I believed her. She’d been beautiful and popular back in high school, sure, but she had never been mean. And she still wasn’t mean, although she was even more beautiful and still very popular, as far as I could tell. Every time we went anywhere, she knew practically everyone and they all seemed to love her.

  “Who would be at the Silver Dollar tonight?” I asked, and she named a large group of women we would meet up with, many of whom I recognized.

  “See? All really fun people,” she concluded, whipping through the clothes in my closet, shaking her head at every item she uncovered. “You dress very, um, conservatively,” she pointed out, holding up a blazer, just the perfect navy and a boxy shape I loved. “Don’t you have any party clothes?”

  “What about this?” I pulled out a dress, and her eyes widened.

  “Oh! That’s interesting,” she answered guardedly. “How many yards of fabric is it, do you think?”

  “It’s very comfortable.”

  She grabbed the tag to read it. “Hallie! This is a maternity dress!”

  “It was on sale,” I said. “And it’s so flattering.”

  Gaby shook her head. “Put that back. No, hand it to me. We’re giving this away to someone who’s actually expecting!” The hangers screeched as she shoved them aside, one by one. “Here! This one,” she said, and pulled out a top that I had bought on a whim for our office Christmas party last year. I had only worn it that one time.

  “That’s a little…” I eyed it. I’d had a very strange, uncomfortable time at that party, and this shirt hadn’t helped. It was too low in the front, and I personally had too much in the front to get away with it.

  Gaby ignored me. “Where do you keep your jeans?” she asked briskly.

  “On my body,” I told her, and she did a fairly good job at masking her horror that I had only the one pair, and they were the slightly baggy ones that I was wearing. “They’re comfortable!” I said.