Rush Me

by Allison Parr

  Abe turned to me over the small pieces of pie that finished off the meal. The guys had just taken a break from their lengthy discussion of the upcoming Sunday game. I imagined this discussion as an ongoing conversation throughout the season, occasionally dropped for a different tangent, but always brought up when two or more players reconvened. “Hey, I totally spaced. The week after, we’ll be in Oakland. My family’s gonna come up to see me.”

  For a minute I didn’t know what he was talking about, and then I remembered next Thursday was Rosh Hashanah. “Oh, no problem. So you’re going to get to see them?”

  “Yeah. We’re going out Thursday, anyway, to get used to the time-difference, so it’s no big deal. It’s too bad you’re not coming. You’d love California.”

  I could contribute to their giant economy. “How did such a large place go so broke?” I mused.

  The rest of the table winced and Ryan, sitting to my left at the head of the table, kicked me. Then everyone’s expressions glazed over as Abe launched into a long speech about taxes and Briana, also a native Californian, contributed a dissertation length diatribe on the effects of direct ballot initiatives. “What’s to be expected,” she argued against no one, raising her voice over Abe as he mourned Apple paying its taxes in Nevada, “when people keep voting the budget away into every cause they support?”

  Somewhere I’d gotten the idea Californians were supposed to be mild-mannered. Apparently not.

  “Now see what you’ve done,” Ryan murmured to me. “I bet we’re the best educated East Coast team on California finances.”

  “Well, maybe you could use your knowledge about the broke state to keep yourselves from going broke.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t get smart, Hamilton.”

  I grinned at him, delighted by his wry expression and small smile, until Abe’s arm jostled me, and then I looked away.

  Chapter Eleven

  After dinner everyone migrated to the couches, and Briana came to stand by my side, a hint of expensive perfume pearling off her skin. “So. I hear you’re in publishing.”

  A smile tugged at my lips. In publishing sounded so dashing, and for a moment I wanted to lie and say oh, yes. Definitely, and buff my nails against my shoulder. I reined in the impulse since I barely knew Briana. “I’m just an intern.”

  “Right. Where’d you go to school?”

  “Uh, BU.”

  “And you studied English?”

  “I did. Where’d you go to school?”

  She took a moment before responding, as though to remind me this was her interrogation, not the other way around. “UCLA. Do you know much about football?”

  “Absolutely nothing. How about you?”

  “I should write a book. You kind of have an attitude, don’t you?”

  “Just a small one.”

  “So does Ryan. His is large. What’s your deal? The general consensus seems to be that you’re Ryan’s girl, but he’s not saying anything, not even to Malcolm.”

  I choked on air. Ryan’s girl? “I thought you were supposed to be a little more circumspect. Like, invite me out to lunch so you could grill me.”

  She finally cracked a smile. “No, that’s the second step. And it includes a couple of the other Leopard girlfriends, too.”

  “That sounds...vaguely cultish.”

  “Oh, it is.”

  I laughed. “I am not anyone’s girl.” Because I was a woman! I had to get better at my roaring. “I just—sort of stumbled into this.” I tilted my head. “Are there are a lot of other girlfriends? Most of the guys seem serially single.”

  Briana smirked. “It’s this crowd. They’re the young, Manhattan living, commitment-phobe group. A lot of the team lives in Jersey or Westchester, married to college sweethearts with two-point-four kids.” She shuddered.

  “Except Malcolm can’t have commitment problems.” Because, you know, the ring.

  “They call me the beginning of the end.”

  “But you’ve been around a while. Two years?”

  “Two and a half. But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you. Why are you here?”

  I should have Briana interrogate my brother’s girlfriend. “Abe wanted to have dinner.”

  “Mmm.” She looked over at the guys. When she turned back at me, her expression had steeled. “Ryan’s very skittish.”

  “This is the warning off part, isn’t it?”

  Her lips smiled, but her eyes stayed focused. “Yeah. So listen. Ryan hasn’t dated anyone real since I’ve known him. He does long term, high-profile flings. It’s messed up. But he does not do dinner at his house. He certainly never does dishes with anyone.”

  How had that got out? Wait, that was not the top of my list. “Ryan doesn’t even like me.”

  She gave me a withering look. “Don’t be an idiot.”

  Right. “Being attracted to someone isn’t the same as liking them.”

  She outright laughed. “You’re not his type. If he’s attracted to you, it’s not for your looks.”

  That just brought my self-esteem to a whole new level, coming from a stunning model-actress.

  She tilted her head. “In fact, I bet it’s because you’re different. You seem very—artsy. Academic.”

  “And that appeals to football players?” I asked dryly.

  She shook her head. “Ryan’s a great guy.” Somehow her words came out doubtfully. “And it’s not that he isn’t a wonderful player, he’s a dual-threat for God’s sake, it’s just...” She trailed off, frowning slightly. I frowned back at her. I didn’t know what a dual-threat meant. I knew a triple-threat: a person who could act, sing, and dance, but I was pretty sure Briana wasn’t referring to Ryan’s Broadway talents.

  “It’s not his entire world.” She picked her words carefully. “Some of the guys, you can’t imagine them doing anything else, but Ryan... Sometimes I think he could have done anything. Maybe that’s why he likes you, because you’re something different.”

  “Well that’s quite a recommendation.” I had no idea how to interpret being “something different.”

  “He’s Malcolm’s best friend. I want him to be happy.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Well. I’ll be sure to send you the newsletter with my love life report.”

  She laughed again, and Malcolm stepped in. “Something funny?”

  “Always,” She leaned forward to kiss his cheek. In heels and with an inch or so of hair, she almost met his height. “Ryan caught himself a live one.”

  Malcolm smiled. One hand twisted in his pocket, like he was turning over a box.

  When everyone left, I stayed behind to clear the table again. “Briana thinks it’s weird that we do the dishes together.”

  “Oh?” Ryan took a stack of plates from me. “What about you?”

  “I think everything’s weird, remember?”

  “It’s because you’re weird. It skews your perception of things.”

  Across the room, my phone buzzed. Due to my awful, insidious curiosity about ringing phones, I lunged for it, and frowned at the caller ID. Why was my brother calling at eleven on a Friday? “Sorry. One sec.” I took the call, pacing across the floor and dropping onto the couch directly before the window. “Hey, David.”

  “Rachael! What’s up?”

  “Oh, just finishing dinner. You?”

  There was a pause. “I wanted to talk to you for a sec.”

  Great. Ryan raised a brow, and I waved him away. “Sure. What’s up?”

  “So...you’re coming home for Rosh Hashanah, right?”

  It drove me nuts when he asked things like that. I knew I was being irrational, since he wasn’t actually checking; it was simply his manner of broaching the topic. Still, it bothered me that he questioned whether I would come home for the holiday. “Of course. I’m coming in Thursday, and staying all weekend.”

  “And you’re bringing your boyfriend?”

  My what now? “What are you talking about?”

  “Mom
said you were seeing someone.”

  My head fell back, and I gazed up at the ceiling in pain.

  “Sophie told me she’d love to meet him.”

  I clenched my teeth. Like Sophie didn’t know through the grapevine that I was single. “I told Mom about a friend. Not a boyfriend.”

  “Oh.” Silence. He didn’t ask any more questions, but I hadn’t expected him to. After all, this wasn’t about me. “Well, since we’re talking about it, I wanted to talk to you about Sophie.”

  “Okaaay.”

  Ryan came down and sat next to me, arms stretched over the back of the couch. I’d sat with my back against the couch’s arm, my knees scrunched up to my chest, and now I felt the sudden urge to extend my legs over his. I resisted, drawing them up even tighter, and mouthing “my brother” at his expression of curiosity.

  “She’s going to come for dinner.” David sounded like I had tried to fight with him. “And I want you to behave.”

  “Excuse me? What does that mean?”

  “Sophie told me that you didn’t like her very much in high school. I know that was a long time ago, but I just wanted to make sure you don’t...harbor any grudges.”

  “That I didn’t like her? David, do you remember anything? How she used to torment me?”

  “Don’t exaggerate. This isn’t going to be a problem, is it? Sophie’s very sensitive. She’s a yoga instructor, you know.”

  “I know.” Not only because David had mentioned it roughly five hundred times, but also because I had thoroughly stalked her profile pages after she started dating my brother. Still, just because she could hook her foot behind her head did not automatically qualify her for sainthood.

  “Good. So you’ll be on your best behavior?”

  “Did you seriously call me up at eleven just to warn me to be nice a week from now?”

  I could practically hear him stiffening defensively. “I have a very busy schedule.”

  He was incredible. “Fine. I’ll be sweetness itself. Anyway, I have to go.”

  “Tell Eva I say hi.”

  I responded automatically. “I’m not at home.” Then I stopped and eyed Ryan, who was watching me. Then the words took over, and I was completely unable to stop myself. “I’m at my boyfriend’s.”

  Ryan shot upright, glaring at me.

  “What?” David sounded confused. “I thought you said you weren’t dating anyone.”

  “Say hi, darling.” I held the phone out to Ryan.

  He glared at me, and I snaked one leg out and kicked him. He scowled. “Hi.” He sounded decidedly unboyfriendly.

  “Who was that?” David demanded.

  “Sorry, I really have to go. Tell Sophie we say hi! Bye!” I hung up.

  “What just happened?” Ryan asked.

  “I just won the grapevine. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. My brother’s girlfriend drives me insane, and David always takes her side in everything. Like in the idea that I’m a total failure. At least now she’ll think I have a boyfriend. Not that I need one,” I hurried to say. “But she sneers at every single girl out there. So. Thanks for your vocal cords.”

  His face ran the gauntlet of expressions, and settled on a wary smile. “So, are you going to tell them I’m your mystery boyfriend, when they ask?”

  I laughed. “Oh, God no.”

  This time, I could comprehend his expression perfectly. Surprise soured into irritation. “Why not? What’s so funny about that?” He started to look angry. “Let me guess, they’d also think I was a dumb jock.”

  I bit back a grin. “First of all, there’s no way they’d believe me. Rachael Hamilton, dating the Leopards’ quarterback? Ha. Sophie especially would think I’d made it up. And it’d be totally embarrassing.”

  “’Cause I’m a dumb jock.”

  I kicked him. “Because David would be all, ‘let me pump your hand and say manly things about sports’ and Sophie would be like ‘ohmigod, I slept with half the football team in high school, maybe I should sleep with you too!’” I lowered my voice for David and raised it for Sophie, and then fell silent a moment. “That’s slut-shaming, isn’t it?” How depressing. “I shouldn’t do that.”

  “It’s so hard to remember you’re all for sexual equality and no double standards.”

  I gave him a look just as dry as his voice. “Don’t worry, I think you’re a slut too.”

  He laughed. “Why don’t you like your brother’s girlfriend?”

  “She was that popular girl in school. I wasn’t unpopular, but I certainly wasn’t the star of the field hockey and volleyball teams. Freshman year, she decided she didn’t like me.”

  “How come?”

  “Oh, I barely remember.” I stopped, and abruptly added, “I need to stretch out my legs.”

  “Fine.” He didn’t move.

  I looked at him warily, but he didn’t seem to feel one way or the other about it. Fine, indeed. After all, he’d decided hooking up with me was a lost cause. We were just...platonic friends. I cautiously extended my legs. They hovered in the air an inch or so, and then landed across his thighs. He was warm and solid and didn’t look like he cared. I felt like I’d done a fifty-yard dash and come out the winner.

  I smiled, and continued. “I think she dumped her soda on me, and everyone laughed, and I got up and yelled at her about being a spoiled bitch—except I didn’t say bitch because I was way too Puritanical—and then I said, ‘The only reason people pretend to be friends with you is because they’re scared not to.’ And then she dropped her sloppy joe on me.”

  All right. So the entire episode was burned into my memory.

  “She sounds like a treat. Though I can commiserate with the name calling.”

  “Oh, please. Sure, if it had stopped with the sloppy joe. But then she set out to make my life miserable, and she made fun of Kate and Madison and Carly, too. It wouldn’t matter so much if she wasn’t dating my brother right now, but I worry that she hasn’t really changed. Maybe if she’d only bullied me—who doesn’t have a high school bully?—but the lengths she went to, the things she did to my friends...” I shook my head. “I can’t imagine she’s good for David.”

  Ryan watched me with the oddest expression. “That’s not how I would have imagined your high school experience.”

  “Really? Huh. How was yours? Star of the football team? Most popular boy in school?”

  He turned away. “Not exactly.”

  I was surprised. “Really? Why not?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Oh, come on. I just spilled my tragic teen past. What’s yours?”

  “It’s boring.”

  “Then it shouldn’t take long to tell.”

  “All right.” He stared down at my black-stockinged calves, lying in his lap, and then at my feet, and then away, out the window at the thousand lights of Manhattan. His silhouette, like a Renaissance statue, made my breath catch. “I learned to play the game with my brothers and uncles, not in school. Because I wasn’t in school often enough to be on the team, ’cause I had to stay home half the time and take care of my mother. We couldn’t afford a personal caretaker. But she died my junior year, so I played football senior and got scouted. I had few friends and awful grades.” He looked back at me, hard. “Happy?”

  No. I was sad. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

  His hand landed softly on my leg, and my whole body tingled. “We knew she was dying. Breast cancer. I have this memory in my head of her tall and proud, and then sometimes I get flashes of her at the end, small and fragile and tired. She made bad puns up until the end.” He tugged on his earlobe and widened his eyes like he was shaking off a bad case of jitters. “Anyway. That was a long time ago.”

  Nine years, if he’d been a junior in high school. I wondered if it still felt like yesterday. “Did she like football?”

  He snorted laugher. “She hated it. All sports. She taught, and wanted just one of her sons to follow in her steps. She always said it would be me.”
He stopped, and I watched his face close down.

  “Did you ever think about it? Teaching?”

  He shrugged. “I volunteer at two youth programs. I do basic math and English tutoring. And sometimes we toss a ball around. And, um, I’m thinking about starting another foundation.”

  “You’ve already started a foundation?”

  Ryan sounded more awkward than I had ever heard him. “Well, uh. Um. Yeah. For breast cancer.”

  I blinked. “You have a charity for breast cancer?”

  “Yeah, I mean, what else was I going to do with the money, you know? My mom...” He shrugged.

  “What’s it called?”

  “The Jean Carter Foundation.” He grimaced. “Not very original, I know.”

  The Jean Carter Foundation pulled in money from big names and turned it all to research. They’d made enough steps in the right direction that I’d actually caught a couple of features on them in the media. My first reaction was not “how unoriginal, naming a foundation after your mom.” It was holy shit. Ryan founded the Jean Carter Foundation? That was his mother? That tiny, sweet-faced lady on all the posters with the spiky short hair? No wonder I’d recognized the framed picture in his room. “Wow. That’s impressive. Congratulations. Are you—involved a lot? I mean, what do you do?”

  “Not the science.” He started to sound a little more like his old self. “I fundraise. Sign people up to sign away their money. And I show up to events. Sometimes they make me give speeches.” He bowed his head again, and mumbled the next part. “I’m not very good at giving speeches.”

  He looked so forlorn all I wanted to do was cheer him up. Well, I wanted to hear more about this charity, too, and how he had gone about founding it—how did one just found a charity? Did he hire someone to take care of it? Did he search out the head scientists?—but mostly, I wanted him to stop looking so sad. “Why, Ryan,” I quipped. “You may try to hide it, but I think you’re actually a good guy.”

  To my relief, he laughed and directed a mock glare my way. “I don’t try to hide it. You should see the publicity work my agent does! You’re just determined to think the worst of me.”