Authors: Janet Sanders
Brad dropped into a chair with an audible thump and unfurled the napkin in his lap. He was right on the point of tucking into the food in front of him when he seemed to remember where he was and paused, looking at Sarah with his fork hovering in the air. She laughed and inclined her head. “Please, go ahead.”
He smiled and attacked his pasta with gusto, making semi-verbal sounds of satisfaction with each bite. Sarah watched him with amazement. “OK, now you’re just messing with me. I know I’m not that good of a cook.”
Brad shook his head, his mouth too full to answer at first. “Honestly, this is the best I’ve had in a long time. It’s delicious.”
“You’re eating at your Dad’s place,” Sarah asked, suddenly suspicious.
“Yeah.”
“So who does the cooking. You? Your Dad? Ronald McDonald?”
Brad laughed. “Mostly my father cooks something out back on the grill. Steaks some nights, or fish, or a couple brats.”
“Uh, huh. And vegetables?”
“Nowhere to be seen. Except for potatoes. Are potatoes a vegetable?”
“I’m not sure, but in any case this is the first salad you’ve had in weeks.”
“Months.”
“I’m surprised. Don’t professional athletes have to take care of their bodies?”
“They do if they want their career to last very long. But in my case I’m a former professional athlete, so I don’t have a team nutritionist looking over my shoulder anymore. But you’re right, I should know better.”
Sarah shrugged, pushing a slice of tomato around her plate with her fork. “I’m in no position to judge. Most days, when I’m in the office, breakfast is a croissant that I buy with my coffee, lunch is forgotten, and then dinner is takeout. I haven’t seen a doctor in years, because I’m afraid of what he might say about me.”
“You look good to me,” Brad answered. “Very … healthy.”
Sarah laughed despite herself. “Well, thank you. But back to the cooking – you are very kind, and I am happy that you are enjoying the dinner I prepared, but I am also aware that makes me the fastest horse in a very slow race.”
Brad gave her a long look. “You don’t like compliments very much, do you?”
“What do you mean? I like compliments.”
“Every time I say something nice about you, you either deny it or you make some sort of joke. Which is strange, because you’re a beautiful and successful woman. Don’t!” He raised his hand to stop Sarah from speaking. “You’re right at the point of denying what I just said, and you shouldn’t. Those are just the two most obvious things about you, and they’re clear to everyone who spends five minutes with you. Why don’t you like it when someone says nice things about you?”
Sarah was taken aback. She hadn’t expected this from Brad. He had his own obvious qualities – tall, strong, blue eyes, white teeth – but she hadn’t anticipated that he’d be perceptive as well. “That’s … OK, you’re right. I don’t like compliments.”
“Why not?”
“Well, OK, that’s not completely true. I like compliments just fine, when they’re for the right things.”
“And what are the right things?”
“Well, when they’re for something hard. Like if I won the Nobel Prize in physics, I’d be happy to accept compliments for that.”
He laughed. “But for nothing else?”
“No, but not for easy things. Like making pasta and a salad. That doesn’t seem hard to me, so part of me doesn’t want to be complimented for it. When you compliment that, it’s like you’re surprised that I managed to do something easy. Which actually feels like a bit of an insult.” She laughed self-consciously. “And that sounds completely crazy when I say it out loud.”
Brad looked at her with a smile for a long time. “I can see that you’re not going to be an easy woman to figure out, Sarah.”
She shrugged. “That’s true. And I accept that as a compliment.” She raised her glass in a toast. “To complicated people.”
He clicked her glass with his own. “To complicated people, and the men who find them fascinating.”
After that early high they spent the rest of dinner talking about smaller things – what there was to do in and around town, whether Brad had ever had the type of sausage that Sarah had worked into the pasta, and other trivial topics. Sarah was feeling a little out of her depth; she wasn’t opposed to talking about matters of substance with Brad, but she was feeling a little exposed after their initial exchange and she wasn’t ready quite yet to climb back into the analyst’s couch.
When dinner was finished and the dishes were in the sink, they retired to the couch to finish off the bottle of wine. Sarah decided to take control and turn the spotlight on Brad before he had another chance to turn it on her. “So tell me more about your coaching career. Do you think that will make you happy?”
“You sound like you have some doubts.”
“Well, you won’t be the star anymore. Won’t that bother you?”
“I was never much of a star. I played safety, remember. There were some people who knew who I was – the real hard-core fans – but I was basically invisible to everyone else when I wasn’t in uniform, even people who were fans of the team and bought tickets to watch me play. If I had been a quarterback or running back, that would have been different, but safeties are pretty anonymous.”
“So it won’t bother you that the kids you coach will be getting all the attention?”
“It will be a bit of an adjustment, sure. But the main thing is I just want to stay in football. I love the game too much to jut leave it behind. It sounds corny, but it’s in my blood. It really is.”
Sarah smiled at him. “Well, that’s what you should do, then.”
“That’s not to say that there aren’t some down sides.”
“Such as?”
He shifted uncomfortably on the couch, thinking about his words. “Such as every other part of my life. Coaches are pretty famous for putting in long hours.”
“So what? I put in long hours all the time. Or at least I used to.”
“Long hours for you are what, maybe a 12-hour day?”
“More like 16. And then, if we’re trying to get something out the door, sometimes I’ll be there there all night.”
“Right,” he nodded. “That’s what I thought. There are some coaches I know who, during the season, move a cot into their office so they can be there every night. Not just when something important is happening, but every night. Every single night, for the full season. Except when the team is playing on the road, of course, and then they’re in a hotel. They don’t see their homes for more than a few hours at a time for months.”
“What? Do these men have families?”
“Some of them do.”
“And their wives don’t mind?”
“I’m sure some of them do mind, but they make their peace with it somehow. Because that’s the way things are, if you want to be a coach at the highest levels. That’s the level of dedication that you’re expected to show.”
“That’s crazy.”
Brad nodded. “I agree.”
“That doesn’t even make sense. They’re just logging hours. The most important thing isn’t how long you work, it’s how much good work you do, and if you’re exhausted you’re not doing very good work.”
He nodded again. “I completely agree. But I’m not going to be able to change an entire industry, at least not when I’m first starting out. That’s the standard I’ll be measured against. So if I’m serious about this coaching thing – and I am – I have to go into it with the understanding that I won’t have much of a life for a while. Years, maybe.”
Sarah shook her head. “That’s tough.”
“It is. I think it’s the right thing for me, but it won’t always be easy.” He set down his wine glass on the coffee table and turned toward her. “And I wanted to make sure that I was very clear with you about that. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression.”
Sarah’s stomach gave a jump. “What do you mean?” she asked, with a bit of a squeak in her voice.
“I mean that I like you a lot, and I want to get to know you better. I want to keep seeing you, but we’re talking about right now. For as long as I’m in Tall Pines, I want to spend as much time with you as I can. But when I get the call from someone who’s willing to give me a chance, that’s it. You deserve better than I’d be able to give you after that.”
Sarah looked away and took a long sip from her wine, buying the time she needed to organize her thoughts. Brad had just offered to be her temporary boyfriend. Did she want more from him? Less? What did she want, anyway?
At last she set her glass next to Brad’s and turned to meet his eyes. “That sounds perfect. To be honest, I don’t know how much I have to offer, either. I like you, too, and I look forward to getting to know you better, but sooner or later I need to go back to my life.” She gestured at the cabin interior. “Everything about my life here is temporary.”
Brad took her hand and gave it a little squeeze. For a moment Sarah thought that he was going to kiss her, and she even began leaning in a little bit, but then the moment passed. “You still haven’t told me about that life of yours. You know, the one that you need to go back to?”
Sarah smiled and leaned back in the couch, still thinking about the kiss that had never quite materialized. Apparently she’d have to wait a bit longer. Or was she supposed to kiss him? She had no idea what the rules were these days.
“That’s a long story.”
“You already used that excuse. Come on, you don’t need to tell me all of it. Just give me the highlights.” When she paused he added in an accusing voice: “I told you about my plans.”
“Fine, fine. The short version is that I founded a business and someone took it from me. Someone I trusted.”
“Well.” He leaned back on the couch. “That sucks. What happened?”
“I learned a hard lesson about paperwork, and what can go wrong if you don’t keep track of who’s signing what. There are things that I should own, important things, but now the lawyers tell me that this other guy owns them. He wants me out, and because he has documents proving that he owns the most important parts of the business, I’m out.”
“That totally sucks. Can you do something about it?”
“Break his kneecaps, maybe? Do you know someone who might take care of that for me?”
Brad laughed. “I just might. But what I meant was that you could sue him, or report him to the police, or something like that.”
She sighed. “The police are out. What he did was probably illegal. I mean, I’m pretty sure that it was fraud, but I don’t have any proof. It would be his word against mine, and the documents are on his side. I might sue him, if I can find a lawyer to take it on pro bono until we have a settlement. I have money, but it won’t last long if I’m paying legal fees.”
“Well, whatever it is, you have to do something. That sort of thing will poison your life if you don’t do something about it.”
“I know. You’re right. That’s actually why I came to Tall Pines. I know I need to do something, but I don’t know what yet. And sitting in my apartment in San Francisco, just stewing about it, would be way too depressing. So I came here to clear my head and try to figure out what the next step is.”
“Is it working?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Things are coming to me bit by bit.”
“Such as?”
“Such as, it was all my fault. That guy, the one I trusted, cheated me because I allowed him to. I didn’t want to bother with the boring parts of the business. I left all that to him, while I focused on the stuff I enjoy. But the boring parts of the business are important, too, and in refusing to keep track of that stuff I left the door wide open.”
“That’s bullshit,” Brad said, more strongly than Sarah would have expected. “You trusted someone, and he was a slime bag. That’s on him, not you.”
“Oh sure, he was a total slime bag. I’m not exonerating him in any way. He’s a bastard and I hope he burns in hell for what he’s done. But I was at fault, too. I founded a business, and I took a lot of pride in the fact that I founded it, but I didn’t want to spend the time running it. That’s what I’ve realized since I’ve been here. Running a business isn’t like eating at a salad bar and only putting the stuff you like on your plate. It’s a mixture of good and bad. Either you take it all or you don’t do it.”
“Well, maybe,” Brad allowed reluctantly. “What else have you learned?”
She smiled. “That I like it here. I like how pretty it is. How quiet it is. I like the slow pace of life, and how everyone knows everyone else. I wouldn’t have thought I’d like that, but I do.”
“So you’re just a small-town girl at heart?”
She laughed. “No, I’m pretty sure I’m not. But I’m a big-town girl who can appreciate the appeal of a place like this. Maybe if I lived here, after a few months or years I’d be ready to go crazy. Probably I would. But for a change of pace? Yeah, that works for me.”
“All right. Good to know. Anything else?”
Sarah took her glass again and drained the last bit of wine from it. She played with the idea of keeping this last bit of insight to herself, but finally decided to put it on the table with the rest. “I think I have another business in me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I think I’m not done as an entrepreneur. My first experience founding a business was a bad one – it ended badly, at least – but I feel like I’ve got another business in me. I’m not ready to get started yet, but I’m pretty sure that I want to give it another shot. And this time I want to do it right.”
Brad gave her a nod. “That’s awesome. You made some mistakes maybe, but now you’ve learned from them and you can do it even better the second time.”
“That’s the idea, at any rate.”
“That’s all you need, I think. The belief that you can get better. That mistakes make you better, if you learn from them. A lot of the guys I played with, they didn’t believe that. They were sure that they were already as good as they ever would be – as far as they were concerned, everything they had was God-given and they simply put it on display. You can be a good player with that attitude, as long as you have enough natural talent. But the great ones I’ve seen have two things: they believe they can get better every day, and they have a drive to fulfill that promise and improve. Pick themselves up after a defeat and come back even better the next time.”