Out of Position (34 page)

“Cool,” I say. My wine is white, a chardonnay by the smell of it. That makes me think of Lee as much as the “lucky fox” comment did. And as if I didn’t have enough foxes to think about, another one heads toward the table, dragging a vixen behind him. Ty Nakamura, a vulpine wide receiver also in his rookie year, greets Colin with a high five, and plops down on the other side of Penelope, ogling Caroll openly. The vixen with him doesn’t seem to mind. She sits down and immediately takes out a small compact to examine her fur. I don’t have to ask him to know that the two of them haven’t known each other since high school. I’d be surprised if he’s known her longer than an hour.

“I think you’re both lucky,” Caroll says to Colin and Penelope. “To have found someone special and been able to hold on to them is something very precious in this day and age.”

Both their ears flick in that adorable fox-blushing way. Colin says, “I always say, a good football player needs a good lady to be his best.”

“Sure,” Ty chimes in, “and a great football player needs three or four.” He laughs, seemingly unconcerned that nobody else is joining him. I gotta admit, though, I’m smiling.

“I’m gonna get some wine,” his vixen announces.

“Knock yourself out,” he says. As she gets up, he grabs her tail and lets it run through his paw. “Sweet, eh?” he says across the table to me.

“She’s pretty,” I concede.

Colin puts his paw over Penelope’s and clears his throat to get Caroll’s attention. “So are you going to keep this old man straight?” he asks, gesturing to me.

The choice of words makes me glare at him, but he’s fortunately distracted by Caroll and doesn’t notice. I study him while Caroll answers and decide it was just the way he talks, that he didn’t put anything together with his meeting Lee in drag. “We’re still very casual, just learning about each other before we make any further commitments. I know,” she says to Penelope, drawing my attention over there in time to see the vixen’s widened eyes, “I’m not your typical Hollywood starlet.”

Penelope shakes her head. “You’re as pretty as any of the rest of them,” Colin says.

“You’re smokin’,” Ty agrees, with a wink at me.

Colin ignores him. “It’s so nice to meet someone whose morals are more than just things you claim to have in public.”

“To be fair,” Caroll says, “if you take those gossip rags at their word, we’re breaking up and making up every three days. Most of the ladies I know are much less, shall we say, active.”

“Hey,” Ty says, “don’t ruin my fantasies.” He turns around in the chair, scanning the room. “How long does it take to get wine?”

Penelope blushes again. “I’m sorry,” the vixen says, “I know I shouldn’t read them…”

“Oh, of course you should,” Caroll says. “Excellent wine, by the way, thank you, sir.” She inclines her head to Colin. “They’re great entertainment. You just need to keep in mind that they aren’t about real people.”

“You look pretty real,” Colin says.

Caroll shakes her head. “I am. But the Caroll Chavon in the magazine isn’t. She’s a fabrication by people who want to believe that we’re both better and worse than they are. They elevate us and tear us down.”

“You wouldn’t believe what they wrote about Colin his senior year,” Penelope speaks up. “They said he’d taken money and lied about it. It was terrible. As if he would ever do something like that.”

Colin’s ears go flat and he nods. I feel a little more sympathetic to him. “It’s the same thing with us,” I say. “We were talking about that the other night.” It seems rather mercenary to add that we were discussing how to use that to our advantage, and not really the right thing to say to two foxes whose ears are innocent enough to flick when they’re told how lucky they are to be together.

Ty’s vixen comes back with a half-full glass of wine, her nose halfway down in it, muzzle already stained with red. Ty says, “We got all that in the rookie briefing. Y’just have to be really bland and don’t say anything but meaningless crap to them, and ignore whatever they try to pin on you. What, nothing for me?”

His vixen swallows another gulp of the wine. “Get your own,” she says. “I ain’t a waitress.”

“You see this?” Ty laughs. “Women.”

While Caroll and Penelope glare at him, and Colin says something proper and disapproving, I spot Fisher walking across the room, Gena a step behind him. His eyes meet mine for a moment, then we both look away at the same time. He goes to another table. Ours fills up with another rookie, a bear I know only as Brick, a defensive tackle whose real name turns out to be Usher Partchan. Like Ty’s date, the pretty female bear with Brick is, as Lee would say, running a meter.

But the ladies keep mostly quiet while Ty and Brick and Colin talk about rookie stuff. I chime in with my experiences from last year when I’m not talking quietly to Caroll. She’s interested in the world of football, or at least is good at pretending, enough that she’s the one who shushes me when Coach Samuelson gets up to give a speech.

I don’t remember all the words, but it’s a big-game-motivating speech, except for the whole season. Coach Gallick never did that at Hilltown; neither did Coach Kimble at Forester. Everyone in the room, or at least at our table, gets pretty fired up. Ty jumps to his feet at the end and pumps his fist. Across the room, I see Charm do the same. Then everyone’s getting up and cheering. The way we feel right at that minute, we can beat anyone. A championship is a dead lock.

The excited buzz in the room settles down as the waiters bring in dinner, which consists largely of a lot of steak. At our table, a small competition breaks out over who can finish the most the fastest. Brick has an advantage, being a bear, but talking about handicapping would waste precious eating time, so we just shovel the food down, barely taking the time to cut bite-sized pieces.

“Disgusting,” Caroll says, watching me chew as fast as I can.

I swallow. “Us or the steak?”

“You,” she says, “though the steak isn’t really top-notch either.”

“Didn’t notice,” I mumble, my mouth already full again.

She shakes her head, as Brick raises a paw to a waiter to ask for another steak.

He ends up being the only one to ask for three, so even though he doesn’t finish the third one, he’s declared the winner. I finish two, somehow. Colin and Ty both get through a few bites of their second before giving up. Piles of potatoes and salad get pushed to the center of the table as we all lean back in the comfortable haze of digesting. I even feel more kindly disposed toward Colin. He was probably just hanging around with the other rookies. He’s too nice to have been the one harassing Lee.

There’s a break before dessert. We talk, slowly, while the coaches make their way around the room. I watch Coach Samuelson visit nearly every other table before stopping at ours. “How we doing, men?” he says, arms folded, tail ticking from side to side like a metronome. “Good steak?”

“Urrrgh,” we generally reply.

“You men are the future of this team,” he says, leaning closer. “We have a lot of confidence in you. You’re going to start participating this year, but your biggest contributions will be down the line. What I’m going to ask of you this year is to learn as much as you can. Keep your eyes and ears open.

He looks right at me. “Miski, you’re setting a great example for the rest of them. Learning a new position, as quickly as Coach Mikilios tells me you’re coming along, you’re gonna be helping anchor a squad of linebackers as good as anyone else in the league.”

I feel a glow that has nothing to do with steak. At that moment, I believe I am the best in the league. “Thanks,” I say.

He says nice words about the rooks, Colin especially, and then moves on to another table. The four of us exchange looks that shift into big smiles, so I know they all feel the same way I do. The girls don’t quite get it. “You boys,” Caroll says. “I know we actors are supposed to have fragile egos, but we don’t need the director to come pump us up at the beginning of a movie shoot.”

“Maybe he should,” Brick says, and then Ty asks why Caroll said “actors” instead of “actresses” and that discussion lasts through the dessert course.

We get up from the table and mill around when the dessert is taken away. I don’t specifically avoid Fisher, but Caroll and I don’t run into him. We spend some time talking with Gerrard and his wife. Carson’s come solo, one of the few guys who did. Caroll gets along with everyone and even coaxes a few words out of Carson, to my amazement. Charm sweeps through and slaps me on the back at one point, pointing to Caroll behind her back and cupping his massive hands in front of his chest. I roll my eyes at him.

As the evening wears on, Gerrard and Carson start to talk about when to leave. “Wait ’til Jaws and Aston go,” Gerrard’s wife says. “They’ll keep everyone busy.”

“Maybe I want to sign a few autographs,” Gerrard says. He grins at me. “One of the perks of starting, you know.”

“A few,” his wife says, “fine, but if you want to tuck the kids in, you can’t stay for an hour like you did at the Police Benefit last month.”

Gerrard’s ears fold back a bit, making his grin look abashed. “I have a duty to my fans.”

“Yes, yes. Ten minutes, no more. Look, there goes Aston. Let’s get our things.”

Carson and I grin at each other as the coyotes take their leave. Caroll shakes her head. “Football players,” she sighs. “So when should we leave?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “Backups don’t get much attention. Whenever you’re ready.”

“We’re trying to change that, remember,” she says in a low voice. “Let me see when the reporters will be ready.” She checks her phone.

“They’ll be ready all evening,” I say.

“For me, I mean.” She flips through messages.

Carson raises his paw. “Heading out too,” he says, and punches my arm. “See you Tuesday.”

Caroll snaps her phone shut and drops it into her purse. “Let’s grab our things,” she says.

“Was I right?” I pester her as we walk back to our table, her in the lead.

“Anytime?”

She looks back over her shoulder at me. “They’re ready for me now…”

“What does that even mean?” I step up alongside her. “You just want to make sure that pronghorn is there?”

“When we become bigger news, he’ll be the one with the story since the beginning,” she says. “It’s only polite to make sure he’s always there when we’re seen.”

I shake my head. “Most of my football plays aren’t this complicated.”

“Your football plays are over in ten seconds,” she says.

We walk out into the lobby. Gerrard is signing for a cluster of people a third the size of the mob around Aston, whose handsome smile flashes in all directions as he signs for fans of all ages. I flash back to college, when there’d always be girls waiting to chat me up after a game, but a year-plus removed from that, the memory is just a faint flicker.

Caroll and I are halfway across the lobby when I get a whiff of skunk. “Miski,” a voice calls out behind me. The scent’s naggingly familiar, the voice less so. Caroll and I both turn in the same moment.

There’s a spotted skunk holding up a camera phone. “Smile,” he says. A moment later, I hear the artificial click of a picture. I register the mean look on his muzzle, the savage grin, and a whole lot of things come crashing in on my big stupid head all at once.

My first reaction, admittedly, is not a good one. “Give me that!”

I swipe at it, but he’s already walking fast through the crowd, weaving through fans. I try to follow him, shouldering people aside, with Caroll tugging on my shirt. “What’s the big deal?” she says. “We want people to take pictures of us, remember?”

“Not that one,” I say, realizing how stupid it must sound to her, but focusing all my mental energy on keeping sight of Brian’s tufted black ears as they weave through the mass of other people. I can still smell him, but the scent isn’t directional enough to help if I lose him. I shoulder my way through the crowd, Caroll trailing behind me. Thank goodness the Firebirds aren’t more popular. If there were more fans in the lobby, I’d have no chance. On the other hand, Brian doesn’t have as much experience pushing through and around football players as I do.

He’s about to escape out the front when I get close enough to grab his shoulder. He squeaks and turns, glaring defiantly, but his voice is high and tight. “Get off! I’ll scream, I will.”

Caroll’s caught up. “Dev,” she says, “what is going on?”

“Why don’t you tell her?” Brian seizes on Caroll’s appearance to distract me. “Tell her all about your so-called boyfriend, huh? Oh, right. You didn’t tell him about her, either!”

I let him go. My first instinct is to draw back my arm with a fist at the end of it, but fortunately my better judgment catches it at the same time Caroll does. Brian regains some confidence. “Oh, you just try that,” he says, his voice still betraying his underlying fear. “Just try that. What a story that’d be.”

We stand and stare at each other. Then, to save some face, I growl, “Get out of here, and don’t do anything with that picture.”

He smirks, turns, and leaves. I watch him go and then get out my own phone. Caroll looks after Brian and then at my phone, which is already up to my ear. “Oooooookay,” she says. “I know it’s none of my business, but at least tell me whether I should be on the phone to my flea asking for a better way to get in the papers.”