Cabin Fever (9 page)

The bar was both not as bad as she had feared and everything that she had expected it to be. It was dark, very dark, with a few hanging lamps that cast a weak illumination over the dark wood surfaces. It took a few moments for Sarah’s eyes to adjust to the gloom, but when they did she noticed that the bar was clean, at least, and in relatively good repair. A heavy-set man with a bald head was tending bar and ministering to the needs of two patrons who sat in silence, contemplating some unhappy sight they saw reflected in the surface of their drinks. A few decorations hung on the walls – though it was really too dark for them to be decorative in any meaningful sense – and to her left was a chalkboard advertising the day’s specials, all of which were fried.
 

“Is your name Sarah, by any chance?” a gravelly voice asked. Sarah looked toward the bar to see the bartender examining her curiously.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“Is your name Sarah?” he asked again.

“Ummm … yes. How did you know?”

He chuckled and extended a hand for her to shake. “My name’s Mac. I tend bar here, and your father comes in when he’s in town. He’s very proud of his daughters and likes to show me their pictures. The one he has of you is a few years old, but I still recognized you right away.”

“That’s amazing,” Sarah answered, though she felt more than a little taken-aback.
 

“Not really. A good memory for faces is pretty handy when you tend bar. And your face is more memorable than most.”

Sarah laughed, hoping that, if she was blushing, it wouldn’t be visible in the bar’s dark interiors. She looked around for anyone who might once have played professional football, but the two regulars at the bar certainly did not seem likely candidates. For a moment Sarah wondered if she had come on the correct night – they had agreed to meet the very next day, hadn’t they? – when she heard the door open behind her and felt a brief, cool blast of evening air on her back.

She turned to find herself looking at the one man in all of Tall Pines that she didn’t like. "Oh!" was all she could think to say.
 

"Oh," replied the man she had seen wielding the chain saw that had disturbed her pleasant afternoon. A variety of emotions played out across his face, among which Sarah thought she could recognize dismay, a flash of something that could have been anger or irritation, and one, final flash that looked a lot like disappointment. Maybe he had expected that this interview would turn into a make-out session in the back of the bar? Well, she would be happy to disappoint him.

"You must be Brad," she said, thrusting out her hand and slipping into her “cool professional” persona. She had made it through plenty of business meetings with the sort of men who put her teeth on edge. She could manage to be cordial and professional for the few minutes that it would take to hear everything interesting that this man had to say.

"I am, and you must be Sarah," he replied, in a tone of wary cordiality that Sarah guessed he had learned by speaking to reporters. Well, that was good enough -- if they were both intent on getting through this meeting as quickly as possible, it should be a relatively painless experience.

With a bare minimum of small talk that covered the weather and their respective routes to the bar, they chose a booth and Brad went up to the bar to get them a couple beers. Sarah watched them chatting amiably, as if they had known each other for years.

“Is he a friend of yours?” she asked when Brad returned to the table with two tall glasses of some local microbrew. She knew almost exactly nothing about beer, but she wasn’t here to drink so she decided not to be too particular. Tentatively she took a sip and found it bitter, but not unpleasantly so. It was kind of refreshing.
 

“Who, Mac?” Brad answered. “Nah, he’s a friend of my Dad’s. In fact, he might be my father’s only friend.”

Sarah knew that a polite person would ask about that, and maybe even express some concern at the state of Brad’s father’s social life, but she wasn’t feeling particularly polite at the moment and they weren’t here to talk about their parents. She opened the notebook she had brought with her and uncapped her pen.

"So, you played in the NFL."

"I did, for six seasons and part of a seventh. I was lucky."

"Excuse me?" she asked, not understanding.

"Most guys never make it to the pro level, and those who do are usually out of the league in two or three years. Sometimes it's injuries, sometimes you're just not as good as the guy who wants your job. To be where I was, pushing thirty years old and still on the field -- that makes me one of the lucky ones."

"You couldn't have just been lucky. You must have been good at it, too."

"Well, sure, I was big and fast, and I had a good head for the game. The coaches always said that I was like another coach out on the field, because I understood what we were trying to do well enough that the other guys would come to me if they had questions. So I had talent, and I worked hard at it, too, but I think it’s important not to forget how much of it was just luck. Or God’s plan," he added with a chuckle.

She regarded him curiously. “Why did you laugh?”

He looked uncomfortable. “I meant no disrespect. Are you religious?”

“Not particularly. I was raised Presbyterian, but it’s been a while since I’ve been to church.”

“Well, a lot of the guys I played with thought that they were fulfilling God’s plan by playing football.”

“And you think they were wrong?”

He shrugged. “I have no way of telling, one way or the other. But deep down I feel like God has more important things to do than watch a football game and root for this player over that.”

She smiled in agreement. “So why aren’t you still playing? You’re still young.”

Brad stretched slowly, as if working the kinks out of an aching limb. “Injuries. Little ones, big ones, eventually they caught up with me. I played safety, which…”

“What? Safety?”

“It’s a position on defense. Basically you’re in the back, the last line of defense. That’s why it’s called ‘safety,’ because you’re supposed to keep the defense safe from completely breaking down and giving up points. Anyway, a safety has to play against both the run and the pass, which means a lot of running and a lot of hitting. By the end I had had two surgeries on my left knee and one on my right. I couldn’t really run anymore – not very fast, at any rate, and a safety who can’t run simply can’t play in the NFL.”

“So they fired you?”

He chuckled. “They don’t fire you in the NFL, they just cut you from the roster and give your agent a polite phone call. But no, I retired. Probably about five minutes before they were going to cut me, but it was important to me to walk away before I was pushed.”

Sarah was busy scribbling down notes as quickly as she could write them down. The story was beginning to take shape in her head – it wasn’t so much a story of celebrity as it was of time’s inevitable toll on us all, and how sometimes we have to let go of one dream to make room for another. It was good, better than she had expected, but she was used to typing, not writing by hand, and already her fingers were beginning to cramp.
 

“I should have brought my laptop,” she muttered. “So what team did you play for?”

“I played for three, actually: Miami, Kansas City, and Seattle.”

“Seattle? They have a football team?”

He laughed. “I take it you’re not a fan? Yes, they have a team. The Seahawks.”

“What’s a Seahawk?”

“Honestly I have no idea. But Seattle was a great place to play. Actually, everywhere is a great place to play, or can be. I knew some guys in the league who were always angry about this or that, but I was just amazed to be there. At the start of the game, when you run on the field and hear the roar of the crowd, that’s just an unbelievable feeling. Unbelievable. How many guys get to feel that, even once? How can you not be grateful for that?”

Sarah ceased from the scribbling for a moment to look at him more carefully. Brad was not quite the man she had expected. She had walked into the bar expecting to talk with a someone who was more muscles than brains. And there was no denying that Brad was very tall, his shoulders were disconcertingly broad, and there was something about the blue of his eyes that made her want to giggle a little bit. In addition to that imposing physique, though, he also seemed to be thoughtful, even humble. He was very different from the jocks that she knew in high school and college. Come to think of it, he was very different from every man she’d known.

He was looking at her with a crooked half-smile on his face. “What?” he asked.

She smiled ruefully. “Sorry. You’re just not what I was expecting.”

He took a sip from his beer, looking at her over the rim. “Same back atcha. When I got your call, I thought I’d be meeting with some small-town housewife who writes for the local paper when she’s not diapering babies. Then, when I saw who you were, I thought you’d be the same angry woman who gave me so much trouble for cutting firewood.”

“It was loud!”

“It sure was. And I’m sorry if I spoiled your afternoon. I like cutting wood with the saw, in a funny way it’s sort of peaceful for me. The noise blocks everything else out. But of course I should have realized that no one else was enjoying it nearly as much as I was.”

Sarah took a deep breath. “Actually, I’ve been thinking that I owe you an apology. You weren’t doing anything illegal, or even wrong, and I was a bit of a jerk about it. I should at least have thanked you for stopping when I asked. So thank you, Brad.”

He extended his hand for a mock handshake. “You’re very welcome, Sarah.”

Sarah shook his hand and marveled at the strength of his grip. She was beginning to feel very comfortable within this conversation. “So you retired because of injuries, but what brought you to Tall Pines? You must have plenty of money. Why not live in New York or Paris?”

“I don’t speak French for one thing, so Paris is out. But yes – I do have money in the bank. It’s not like I’m a retiree on a pension, though. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life fishing. I’m only 29 years old, and the money’s not going to last forever. I need to get a job. So I came here to stay with my father and figure out what’s next for me.”

“I can understand that,” she said. “I’m here for the same reasons.”

“You retired because of knee injuries?” he teased.

“No,” she laughed. “I … I had a business, but it didn’t work out and now that chapter of my life is over. So I came here to stay at my father’s place while I figure some stuff out.”

He lifted his beer in a toast. “Here’s to us both finding some answers.”

“To answers,” she responded, clinking her glass against his and taking a sip. “Do you have any idea what might be next?”

“Yes, I think I’ve figured that out.” He looked at her speculatively while sipping from his beer.

“And…?”

“And I haven’t told anyone about it, anyone except my father. I don’t like to speak about something when it’s just a plan. As long as it’s just in my head it’s like a baby bird inside an egg, it’s fragile. If I take it out and start showing it around too soon, maybe it never hatches.”

“Or maybe you share it with someone who can help make it real.”

“Are you going to help make my dreams come true, Sarah?” His blue eyes twinkled, and Sarah started to realize how dangerous this man could be. Her heart was already beating a little heavier. Was he flirting with her?

“You never know,” she said, adopting a joking tone that she hoped would hide how nervous she felt. “Maybe this interview will get syndicated, or maybe it goes viral on the Internet, and the next thing you know you’re on national news. Share an idea and things can happen. Keep it in your head, and more often than not it stays locked in your head and doesn’t turn into anything special.”

He took another sip from his glass, considering her. Finally he appeared to reach a conclusion. “OK, Sarah. Fine. I am officially trusting you. I want to be a coach.”

She paused, waiting for more, until she realized that this was the entirety of his big secret. “OK. A football coach, I assume. In college? And do you just apply for that sort of job?”

“Yes, a college football coach, and no, you don’t apply for the job. At least I don’t think you do, and that’s not what I’m planning to do. I know some guys, and they know other guys, and I’m just going to put the word out that I’m looking. Hopefully I’m still enough of a celebrity that I’ll get some interest in return.”

“Right. That sounds good. For you, I mean. You like football and you probably know a lot about it, so you should be a coach. Teach kids to do what you used to do.”

“Something like that. Anyway, Sarah, can I ask you not to write about that in the interview?” He seemed very uncomfortable, as if someone had dumped a bagful of ants down the back of his shirt.

“Why not?”

“Because a washed-up professional football player who gets a job on a major college coaching staff is a nice story, but a washed-up player who is just thinking about doing it sounds like a loser. And maybe I am a loser, but I don’t want to make it any more obvious than it needs to be.”

Without thinking she reached out to take his hand in hers and give it a squeeze. “You’re not a loser, Brad. Please. You’ve had an amazing life, and most men would give their right arm to do half of what you’ve accomplished already. And now you have a chance to find an entirely new thing that you’re good at. I may not know a thing about football…”

“I’m pretty sure that you know nothing about football. Nothing at all.”

“As I was saying, I may not know a thing about football, but I know that you’re thoughtful, you’re intelligent, and you have a ton of experience. There’s no reason in the world that you shouldn’t be an excellent coach.”

They sat in silence for a while, sipping at their beers and looking at their reflections in the mirror behind the bar. Sarah was a little surprised at her outburst. She didn’t consider herself a cold person, but she wasn’t a hugger, either, and here she was showering this man with praise as if she were a mother at a Little League game. She felt a little embarrassed, as if she had broken out into song or something. She looked over at Brad shyly, trying to judge what he was thinking.