Tricia looked at it. “Yes.”
Caroline’s pulse ticked with cautious elation. “It was mailed from here in 1989, April or August. Were you—was my dad—you were together, right? You were—involved with him. Are you still?”
“Mom?” a voice—another male voice—called out. What Caroline assumed must be the back door slammed.
Tricia held up a finger. “Out here,” she called. Looking at Caroline, she said, “My son. He works for me after school when he doesn’t have football practice.”
A young man, high school age, appeared in the doorway. “You got anything to eat?”
“This is my son, Baker,” Tricia said, addressing Caroline. “Baker, this is Caroline Hoffman. She’s—” A beat. “She’s the daughter of an old friend of mine. I’d like to take her for coffee, if you don’t mind watching the shop for a bit.”
“Sure, Mom. No prob. I get paid by the hour regardless.” He grinned, and while he didn’t have the Hoffman dimple, his hair was dark and rumpled, and he was tall and broad through the chest like Caroline’s dad. Baker was built like an athlete, like a football player. Caroline felt light headed.
“You have time for coffee?” Tricia’s look left no room for Caroline to decline, not that she would have. She tucked the letter back into her purse.
Tricia got her coat, and they walked to the end of the strip center and around the corner to Starbucks. Other than a brief mention of the cold, they didn’t speak until they were seated with their caffè mochas at a table in the corner. Other customers, a mix of men and women, were bent over laptops or phones. A sudden burst of laughter erupted from a table in the opposite corner, where three women were sitting, surrounded by a plethora of shopping bags, possibly having taken advantage of the after-holiday sales. Caroline envied them, although she was no shopper. She wished her mind were so frivolously occupied.
“I couldn’t have this conversation in the shop where Baker could hear,” Tricia said. “He knows about Hoff, knows Hoff was part of my life—”
“Is Baker Hoff’s son?” It seemed to her that her breath paused while she waited for Tricia’s answer.
“I know that’s what you think. I saw how you looked at him. But Baker’s only seventeen. Hoff had been gone a good while from my life by the time he was born.”
Caroline didn’t know whether to feel relieved.
“I don’t understand why you’re here. What did Jace tell you? I haven’t been in touch with him or his dad or Hoff for years.”
“When was the last time you saw my dad?”
“In 1989, that summer. I addressed and mailed his letter in August of that year. I was here in Wichita by then, and he came to stay with me. He wanted to . . . continue our relationship—” Tricia turned her cup in a circle. “I wanted a man who would marry me, have children and make a home with me.” She looked up at Caroline. “That isn’t your dad. Despite his promises, I don’t think he knows the meaning of the word commitment.”
“You sent him away?”
“Yes.”
“This was after his accident when he fell at the stadium?”
“Yes.”
“And you haven’t heard from him? Not in all this time?” Caroline kept Tricia’s gaze.
“No.”
Caroline shifted her eyes.
“You really don’t know where he is?”
Caroline couldn’t trust her voice and shook her head. She hadn’t realized how deeply she’d counted on finding her dad here.
“He loved you so much. He talked about you all the time.”
Caroline looked at Tricia, wanting to but unsure whether to believe her.
“I went shopping with him once for your birthday present. He thought a Cabbage Patch doll would be perfect, but I talked him into getting you a Swatch instead. I think you were fourteen that year. Too old for dolls.”
“Thirteen,” Caroline corrected. “I still have it.” The McSwatch with its green and yellow jelly bands and red rubber face guard had been the exact one she’d wanted. Caroline had been over the moon, showing it off to her friends. Had she known his girlfriend had picked out the watch for her, though, she’d have gagged. It was unlikely she’d ever have worn it.
“I don’t think you were getting along too well with your dad at the time.”
Caroline sipped her coffee.
“He was married again by then to Julia. She had a son. Harris was his name, if I remember right. He was younger than you, but you were jealous of him.”
Harris had been eight when her dad remarried. Caroline, at twelve, had felt superior. And bitter—against a boy she’d never met, had adamantly refused to meet. HarrisHarrisHarris, she’d yelled at her father during one of his visits. He’s all you ever talk about, all you care about. Harris had played football, and even as young as he was, from everything Caroline had heard her dad say about him, he’d been showing the kind of athleticism dads dreamed about. It was only natural he’d toss Caroline to the curb. As a girl, she couldn’t play football competitively. She would never land a scholarship to play or get scouted by the pros.
“Your dad was always trying to figure out ways to make you understand he wasn’t choosing Harris over you,” Tricia said. “He hated it that you were so unhappy.”
“You knew he was married, and yet you were—sleeping with him, out shopping for my birthday present with him.” Caroline would be damned before she would let this woman see how badly the knife of her jealousy over Harris had cut her.
“It wasn’t—”
“When did you meet? How long did it last?”
“I was nineteen.”
“What year?”
“I don’t know, 1984—’85. It was a mistake.”
“He’s twenty years older than you, old enough to be your dad.”
“Twenty-two years older.”
Caroline hooted. She thought of Nina, that Tricia had been near Nina’s age when she’d met Hoff. The mama bear in her would kill any fortysomething man who went after her daughter. What had her dad been thinking?
“Some men aren’t cut out for monogamy.”
“Please don’t make excuses for him.”
“If it helps, I know it broke his heart that you were so angry at him.”
Caroline’s throat closed. It didn’t help. “Where is he, if his heart was so broken?” She flicked a glance at Tricia.
“He was different after his head injury. You know how serious it was—that he nearly died? He was ten days or more in the ICU. Six weeks in rehab after that. Big Dog—Coach Kelly and I took turns staying with him. I brought him home to my apartment when he was discharged. He fell in December, so it would have been around the first of March when they let him go. He couldn’t do much for himself at first. We had to help him dress, tie his shoes, feed himself.”
“Where was his wife? Where was Julia?” Caroline didn’t want to think of herself, where she was, how she—Hoff’s own daughter—had stayed away out of resentment and selfishness.
“I think Julia wanted to come. Hoff’s sister, Lanie, wanted to come, too, but he was against it. I got the feeling there wasn’t much money for traveling, but honestly, I think it was more pride than anything. He didn’t want them—or you—seeing him so helpless.”
“He didn’t mind if you saw him that way?”
Tricia looked off, and when she brought her gaze back, her expression was a puzzle, conflicted in ways Caroline couldn’t define. “Your dad and I—” she began, but then she bent her weight on her elbows, pushed her cup of coffee away. She glanced sidelong at Caroline. “Why should I talk to you? I don’t know you, don’t owe you—anything.”
“No,” Caroline said, “but you knew my dad. On an intimate level. And I’m trying to find him. Not just for me. Lanie is sick. Cancer. She’s got weeks, maybe a few months at most. She wants to see her brother.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. Hoff used to talk about her. He loved her, thought the world of her.”
“Really? Like he loved
me? He’s got a funny way of showing it.”
“I know how it must seem, what his actions suggest, but I believe his love and concern for you, for Lanie, even for me—it’s genuine and real, wherever he is.”
The door opened, and a man held it for the elderly woman who was with him. Cold wreathed around Caroline’s ankles, poked frigid fingers down the collar of her shirt. She was so tired of being cold, so sick of winter. What was she doing here anyway?
“Danny, my husband, Baker’s father, and Baker—they don’t know anything about my life back in Omaha. Not the entire story, anyway.”
Caroline met Tricia’s gaze.
“I’ve told them Hoff was my mentor.”
“Your mentor.” Caroline couldn’t keep the irony from her tone.
Tricia slapped the table. “You know, you need to get over it. I’m not saying your childhood was perfect, but I do know it was a lot more stable than mine. Your folks might have been divorced, but they saw to it you had a roof over your head, food on the table, clothes—your own, not someone else’s—on your back, and that’s a hell of a lot more than my parents did for me.”
“If you’re going to make excuses for yourself and my cheating dad—”
“Have you never had the wish to reinvent yourself? To step away from the person you’ve been, the mistakes you’ve made, and become someone else entirely?”
Caroline might have answered yes, given her current situation with Rob, but Tricia didn’t allow time for a response.
“Your dad helped me do that. He helped me see I was worth something, that I was more than some throwaway foster kid nobody wanted. He and Big Dog—Coach Kelly—both of them helped me get into college and stay there. They made me see I could have a different future. If I’m a success now—and I am—as a business owner, a female business owner, I have them to thank.”
Caroline averted her glance, but Tricia’s ferocity, the emotion blazing in her eyes, her voice, was resonant. So what? It was her thirteen-year-old self asking. You got my daddy, and I got a Swatch.
“I don’t much care for your attitude, Caroline, but I’m going to tell you what I know about your dad anyway because I’m concerned.”
“Concerned?”
“I don’t believe Hoff would have let all this time go by without a word to you or his sister even if he wanted to disappear.”
“But why would he?”
Tricia huffed a sigh. “When I met Hoff, I was working at a club in Omaha, the Blue Pearl. He and Big Dog hung out there. My boss, the club owner, J-Ray, was a buddy of theirs; he was also a bookie. There were a bunch of guys who came in regularly. They’d order pitchers of beer, get their bets down, watch the games on the big screen. Watch the girls dance. It was like a big frat party in there sometimes.”
“Dad gambled?” Caroline had never heard it before.
“Not big, but yeah. Like all the guys, he came for the girls too.”
“You were one of the girls—a dancer.” Caroline understood suddenly. The smoky pitch of Tricia’s voice, her appearance—the shade of her hair that was a little too platinum, the blue of her eye shadow that was a little too blue. Under her coat, the plunging neckline of her sweater bared more cleavage than seemed practical in such cold weather. She might have reinvented herself, Caroline thought, but she hadn’t left her past behind entirely.
“I only worked there to get tuition for college. I didn’t know a better way. It was for damn sure some dead-end minimum wage job wasn’t going to get me there.”
Caroline thought of Nina. When she was born, Rob had insisted on starting a college fund for her. Nina would never have to work to pay for her degree. Neither had Caroline. The money had been there. Could she have—would she have—worked her way through? Had she cared that much?
“Maybe you’d rather not hear what I have to say.” Tricia started to get up.
“No, please. I’m sorry. You were saying how my dad came to the club—”
Huffing a sigh, Tricia sat back down. “Yeah. He and the coaching staff would bring in players, too—potential players.”
“Recruits, in other words.”
“Yes. Usually high school boys who were underage. Hoff and Coach Kelly and some of the other bigwigs, Tillman Tiger alums, the boosters, brought these young guys there and saw to it they had a good time. I don’t know much about the recruiting process, but I don’t think that’s supposed to be part of it.”
“You’re sure.” Caroline wasn’t. She wanted this woman to be wrong. She wanted not to listen. Her heartbeat was rough in her chest; she felt light headed and wanted to leave, but that wasn’t an option.
“Do you know who Brick Coleman is?”
“Dad recruited him.”
“He was all-state, all-conference every year he was at Tillman. He put that school on the map and went on to play pro for the Bears.”
Caroline nodded. She knew all of this.
“Did you ever wonder why Brick chose Tillman when he had his pick of Division One schools?”
“His uncle was an alum. He probably influenced Brick.”
“Maybe that was part of it, sure, but the truth is Brick was paid.”
“Paid? Are you saying they gave him money?”
“And bought him a car and set him up in a condo. The uncle, Farley Dade—we called him Uncle Big Bucks—hung out at the club too. He was a big-time booster, one of several with deep pockets. He gave a ton of cash to Tillman.”
“That can’t be right. Dad wouldn’t—”
“Hoff wasn’t the only one involved, and Brick wasn’t the only player who got paid to play.”
“No way.” Caroline felt emphatic, even righteous, in her denial. She began naming the reasons why it wasn’t possible: it was illegal; Tillman would never have taken such a risk; the NCAA wouldn’t have allowed it.
“I believe the NCAA opened an investigation—” Tricia began.
“Where’s the proof? Do you have any?” Caroline was angry now. Her dad might be a philanderer, and he might have abandoned her, but this—gaming the system to lure the best players—was a line he would never cross.
“You can believe me or not.”
“I know my dad. But you knew him too. You slept with him, right?”
Tricia reached for her purse. “I knew this was a mistake.”
Caroline touched her arm. “I just can’t believe my dad would be involved in some recruiting scam. He’s—at least when I was growing up, he was always saying that an athletic scholarship wasn’t a gift. It had to be earned through hard work—”
“—dedication, and discipline.”
Caroline’s dad’s pitch. “Did Dad tell you himself that he did this?”
“Not directly. But there was a lot of talk at the club back then. Enough that there had to be something to it. When I asked, Hoff warned me not to get nosy. Obviously something’s happened if your dad hasn’t contacted you in all this time,” Tricia added after a pause.
Caroline pushed her hair behind her ears. Inside, she was fuming. Liar! The word was parked on her tongue. You don’t know what you’re talking about. She could have said that too. If—if she hadn’t felt in her bones, in the cooler rivers of her blood, that what Tricia was telling her was the truth.
“Look, there was a guy back then who came into the Pearl who said he was a reporter. He sure acted like one; either that or he was a cop. He was always asking questions, sniffing for information. If he’s still around, he might know more—more than I do, anyway. He might have your precious proof—but if you ever say I gave you his name, or that we spoke today, or ever, I’ll call you a liar.”
“Really? Your anonymity is that critical after all these years?”
“I’m not kidding. I don’t like it that Jace knows where I am.”
“All right.” Caroline went along as if she accepted that anyone—any legal authority—would care about thirty-year-old recruiting violations. For all she knew, Tricia was into drama, and the entire story was an invention.
/> “His name was Kip Penny. He came into the Pearl a lot, asking questions, like I said. He’d order a beer and never drink it, but he tipped like crazy. He hung around with your dad, and the others, Brick and his uncle. They were suspicious of him; they were convinced Kip was from the NCAA or an undercover cop. Turned out he was a reporter, but I didn’t find that out until later.”
“Were you and Brick close?” Something in Tricia’s demeanor when Tricia said his name made Caroline ask.
She colored slightly, and that was answer enough, but she denied it at first, saying “No.” Then, backtracking, she said, “Yes, but it was a long time ago.”
They’d been lovers. Caroline was certain of it. She guessed Brick would have been near Tricia in age, nearer than Caroline’s dad. She’d probably had them both on the string. But Tricia’s morals weren’t the point. “Did Brick tell you Dad paid him to go to Tillman?”
“Find Kip. That’s all I can say.” Tricia started to rise but sat down again before Caroline could object to her leaving. “There is one other thing I can tell you. Kip came to my apartment that summer, in 1989, while your dad was staying with me. They went outside on the patio and talked for a long time. I don’t know what was said, but Hoff was upset afterward.”
“Did he say why?”
“Not really. I got the impression it had to do with a story Kip wanted your dad’s help with, an investigative piece Kip was working on. I figured it was related to the shenanigans at Tillman. Your dad left a day or two after that meeting. I assumed he went back to Wyatt, back to Julia and Harris.”
“If he did, he didn’t stay long,” Caroline said.
“How do you know?”
“He left here the same month you posted the letter, right? August of 1989?”
“So?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s the last time Lanie talked to him too. She didn’t get worried, though, until after the holidays. He always called at Thanksgiving and Christmas, but not that year. Lanie finally called Julia, but she said Dad had left her. She didn’t know who for or where he went. Lanie accepted it because he has a history of just taking off—”
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