Well Played

by Jen DeLuca

  But that wasn’t the case here. I had the big picture, and Mitch had all the puzzle pieces for me. I just needed to put them together.

  “I don’t mind,” I said. “It’ll be fun.”

  * * *

  • • •

  And it was fun, for a little while.

  When I got home that night I downloaded Mitch’s spreadsheet to my laptop, and created a folder with all the other paperwork he’d sent. I logged on to the Faire’s business email account and sent out reminders to the acts that hadn’t confirmed. Easy. A warm thrill went through me when I saw that Dueling Kilts had already confirmed for the summer. Dex. I couldn’t wait to see him again, and that time was coming up so soon now.

  Over the next couple weeks the last confirmations trickled in, and we had a full complement of acts for the summer. A few signed contracts were still outstanding, but most of them had come via email, so I wasn’t too concerned yet. Plenty of time.

  When I left work one Friday in early June, there were two notifications on my phone. The first was a text from Mitch, saying that the last two contracts had been mailed to him, and to meet him at Jackson’s for happy hour and he’d pass them along. It sounded like a thinly veiled request for a drinking buddy, but what the hell. I didn’t have any plans.

  The second notification was a short message from Dex, which I waited to read until I got to the bar. I wanted to savor it with my Friday night glass of wine while I waited for Mitch to show up.

  To: Stacey Lindholm

  From: Dex MacLean

  Date: June 5, 4:37 p.m.

  Subject: Weekend

  A rare weekend off! This hardly ever happens. And what am I doing? Sitting here in a bar on my own. The other guys are off doing their own thing, and I couldn’t be bothered tonight. All I can think about is you. Which feels . . . strange, don’t you think? It’s been months since I’ve seen you, and I’m not even sure that you . . .

  I’m not going to finish that thought. But I’m not going to delete it either. I’m just going to hit Send. July will be here before we know it.

  That all sounded so vague, and almost ominous. I sipped my rosé and took a look around Jackson’s. No Mitch yet. I suppressed a sigh and ordered some mozzarella sticks. I never wanted to hear him complain about women taking too long to get ready for anything. I switched from email to text and tapped out a message to Dex.

  What a coincidence. I’m alone at a bar myself right now. What do you like to drink when you’re drinking alone?

  He wrote back right away. I don’t know if I like the thought of you drinking alone. I’m about halfway through a pint of Guinness right now. You?

  I shuddered. Ugh. That stuff is too thick. You don’t drink it, you chew it. No, thank you.

  Ha, he replied, dark beer is definitely not something you chug. But it’s my thing. Every new town, as soon as I check into the hotel, I head for the nearest bar and order the darkest beer they have. Usually it’s a Guinness and that’s fine, but sometimes I get surprised by a craft stout. Not so much refreshing as comforting. Really nice after a long drive. I sip it really slowly and center my brain, focusing on the shows ahead.

  No shows this weekend, I texted back. What are you focusing on now?

  The future.

  I frowned. That was a vague reply. But before I could ask for clarification he changed the subject. But you didn’t answer my question. What are you drinking there, alone?

  My mozzarella sticks arrived, and I took another sip of wine. Still no Mitch. Rosé, I responded. That’s *my* thing, I guess. Part of the whole basic white girl aesthetic that I embrace. Can’t help it. I’m a blonde. I love mimosas, Pumpkin Spice Lattes, and my rose-gold iPhone. But I have some standards: no UGG boots and I’m terrible at yoga.

  His answer came quickly. There are a lot of words I’d use to describe you. Basic isn’t one of them.

  “Hey, there you are.”

  I started at the sound of Mitch’s voice and almost dropped my phone onto the bar. “Here I am,” I said back, a little irritated. “Hiding from you right here at the bar ten feet from the front door.”

  “Funny.” Mitch took one of my mozzarella sticks and ordered a beer before sliding a folder with the contracts in my direction. “Who you texting? Big date tonight?”

  I snorted as I tucked the folder and my phone into my bag. “Hardly. The hottest date I’ve had lately is the battery-powered one I have waiting for me at home.” Of all my friends, Mitch would appreciate a vibrator joke the most.

  I was right. He laughed out loud and slapped the bar with the flat of his hand. “Nice!”

  His appreciation of the joke made me smile. Same old Mitch. He was another one who’d never left town, just like me. But unlike me, I wasn’t sure that he’d ever tried. I watched him polish off the other half of the purloined mozzarella stick and take a swig of beer before I spoke again. “Mitch,” I asked, “do you ever wish you’d left home?” I wasn’t sure where this change in subject had come from, but texting with Dex always made me feel a little wistful. A little lonely. A little stuck. Was I the only townie who regretted staying behind?

  His expression turned thoughtful, an odd look for him. “Not really,” he finally said. “I never really thought about it, if you want to know the truth. I like it here, my family’s here, and I’ve got a pretty good thing going. Other people are destined for bigger things in bigger cities. But not me. Besides . . .” He shrugged. “If I weren’t here, who’d get the baseball team to State? Simon?”

  I scoffed and reached for my wineglass. “Yeah, that would be a no.”

  “Exactly. I’m needed here.” His tone was that of a world-weary general who couldn’t desert his troops. He peered at me over his pint glass. “I always thought you’d get out of here though.”

  “You did?” I had no idea that Mitch had ever given me more than a trivial amount of thought.

  “Yeah. I remember you in school. You were pretty driven.” His lips curved up in a nostalgic smile. “Cute too.”

  Hello. “Now you tell me!” I put my glass down. I couldn’t believe this. “I had the biggest crush on you in high school, you know. Well, I’m sure you do know. Most girls did, right? You were the football hero.”

  Mitch tried to look modest, but he failed miserably. Just like when we were kids, he was born to preen. “Well, someone had to take over for Sean Graham once he graduated. I still can’t believe that Simon wasn’t an athlete like his brother, you know? What a waste.”

  “Simon ran track,” I protested.

  Mitch scoffed. “Simon read books. Nerd.”

  I rolled my eyes with a smile. “Whatever.”

  He rolled his eyes back. “I almost asked you out a couple times senior year, you know.”

  “What?” My jaw sagged. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I was way younger than you!”

  “Well, yeah. That’s one reason why I didn’t. But you’d also just made varsity and wore that cute little cheerleading skirt on game days, so I was conflicted. I mean, sure, you were just a sophomore, but your legs, man . . .” He gave a wolf whistle that made me tingle with embarrassed pride and brought our bartender over so we could order another round.

  “I can’t believe you’re just telling me this now,” I grumbled as I crunched down on another mozzarella stick. “High school would have been a lot more fun.”

  “Tell me about it.” Mitch’s sigh was belabored as he took my last mozzarella stick. “We would have absolutely rocked prom.”

  I stole an appraising glance at him as we got our second round of drinks, and I reached deep inside for the high school girl that I knew still lived inside me. That girl who would have shanked someone for five seconds of attention from Mitch Malone. But she lay dormant now, and any wild crush on Mitch had been replaced with affection. Once I’d gotten to know him, the real Mitch that lay beneath the gorgeous exterior,
he’d become more like a big brother, a good friend, and wasn’t that better in the long run anyway?

  When it was time to go and we settled our tabs, it struck me that the way I felt about Mitch was a lot like how I felt about Dex. While I certainly appreciated the outer package and had nothing to complain about there, it was that inner layer, the one he’d been showing me in his emails and texts, that really interested me. These past summers, it had been that Hemsworth-like body and nothing else. But I’d learned so much about him over the last few months that I realized it was his words I was attracted to now, and who he was inside. His Hemsworthiness didn’t matter to me anymore.

  That was . . . That was a revelation. He was states away—I actually wasn’t sure what state he was in at the moment—but I needed to let him know. But not via text. Not from a bar. I had to get to my laptop. I couldn’t tap all this out on my phone.

  Eleven

  To: Dex MacLean

  From: Stacey Lindholm

  Date: June 5, 9:47 p.m.

  Subject: Revelation (no, not the Bible)

  I realized something tonight. I realized that I’m in deep with you. I guess that should be obvious, considering how much I look forward to every email and text. But that’s what I’m trying to say here. It’s your words. Parts of me have forgotten your touch, your face. But it doesn’t matter at all. It’s you that I miss. You’ve shared so much of yourself with me through these messages that what you look like doesn’t even enter into the equation anymore.

  Is that strange? I know you’re proud of the way you look. And you absolutely should be—don’t get me wrong. But it’s just . . . that doesn’t matter to me anymore.

  And now that I’ve typed this all out, it doesn’t seem like as much of a Deep Thought as it felt like it was in my head. Hopefully you know what I mean.

  To: Stacey Lindholm

  From: Dex MacLean

  Date: June 6, 1:13 a.m.

  Subject: Re: Revelation (no, not the Bible)

  I do know what you mean. And it’s a much deeper thought than you realize.

  Anastasia, there are things I need to say to you. Things I need to say in person. Words on a screen aren’t good enough. Even Skyping with you wouldn’t be enough. I need to see your face. Be in the same room with you, breathe the same air. Maybe even touch your hand, if you’ll allow it after you hear what I have to say.

  I’m going to be completely honest, it’s a conversation I’m a little afraid to have. But it’s necessary. Our stop at Willow Creek can’t come soon enough. At the same time, I don’t want this to end. Our emails. Our texts. Getting to know you this way feels so much more honest than through the masks we wear on a day-to-day basis. That seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? Face-to-face communication should be more honest, while we can hide behind words on the internet. But here we are.

  Dex’s email woke me up more than the mug of coffee in front of me that next morning. Things I need to say to you . . . His words squeezed my heart, and I couldn’t take a good deep breath. What did he need to say, and why he was afraid to say it? Now I was afraid too.

  But I didn’t have time to think about it the way I wanted to. It was Saturday morning. A Faire rehearsal morning. Chris had returned from Florida and was here to wrangle the kids, but she’d asked that I come and help out. It wasn’t my usual gig—I’d been a tavern wench for years now—but it was nice to be helpful in another way. So off I went.

  * * *

  • • •

  Taking over Faire planning for Mitch turned out to be a lot of work, but it was work that I was good at. I spent most evenings after work behind my laptop at my little kitchen table. Now that I’d been emailing with Dex for so long and knew some of the ins and outs of the lives of the traveling performers, I knew that our accommodations were some of the best they got on the circuit. I considered bringing it up with Simon; surely he’d like to know if there was a way that we could be saving money on running things. But Dex had spoken of staying in campgrounds when hotels weren’t available or affordable, and Willow Creek didn’t have anything like a campground anywhere nearby. So hotel rooms it was.

  Organizing the rooms was a complex affair. First, I figured out how many rooms each act needed, then I worked to Tetris everyone into the blocks of rooms at each hotel. Once that was done, I logged into the Faire’s email account and started sending emails to the managers of each act with confirmation numbers and directions. Mitch had never signed any of the emails since it was just from a generic business account, so I didn’t bother letting anyone know that the person handling things had changed. It wasn’t likely they’d care; we were all part of the Faire’s organizational committee. I did add a note to all the confirmations, letting them know that Simon and Emily’s wedding would be the second weekend of Faire, and anyone who was performing that weekend was welcome to join the festivities. Most of these people had been working with Simon and this Faire since the beginning, and I figured they would want to know.

  Simon checked in on my progress a few times when I’d first taken over, but once he saw that I had it all under control he was able to let go and let me handle it. And not a moment too soon; Emily basically swooped in and took him away to finalize their wedding plans. He had enough to do without needing to micromanage me. And from Simon, there was no higher compliment than not needing to be micromanaged. That made me feel good. I was doing something right.

  Meanwhile, Mitch’s baseball team did indeed make it to State, which he told us all in a badly spelled group text that appeared to have been sent after more than one beer. But what the hell. He and his boys had worked hard for that victory, and he deserved a chance to savor it. April’s congratulatory response corrected his misspellings. His reply was a middle finger emoji.

  When school let out later in June, Mitch’s time freed up, but Emily and Simon’s was nonexistent. Mitch offered to take the booking assignments back from me, but I was almost done with them, so he went back to planning a bachelor party for Simon. I didn’t want to imagine the kind of shenanigans that would pass for a bachelor party in Mitch’s mind, so I did my best to not think about that at all.

  By early July, the summer progressed from pleasantly warm to oh-my-God-it’s-hot, just in time to go to the Faire site and help with the main prep. We spent two weekends placing benches and painting sets.

  “Okay, this is what I don’t understand.” Emily opened the cans of paint while I taped out lines on the wooden information booth in the shape of a Tudor-style thatched cottage. “We painted a bunch of stuff last year. And the year before that. Why are there new things to build and paint every year?”

  I stepped back and checked my handiwork. The wide masking tape was in a Y-shape. Last weekend, we’d painted this booth dark brown. Today, we’d paint the booth with a textured paint to look like stucco with the tape marks on; then once the paint dried we could take off the tape, and the darker color underneath would look like the timbers of a Tudor-style house. We’d get a couple kids to climb ladders and paint the roof to look like a thatched cottage. Easy. At least, easy when you’ve been doing stuff like this for a decade or so.

  Satisfied with how the tape looked, I turned my attention to Emily’s question. “It’s all about what needs to be refreshed. I think the booth we used last year was from when we’d first started. We reuse the benches every year, but some of them get broken during each Faire, so they have to be replaced.”

  “Yeah, but the stages . . . we have to rebuild the stages every year too.” She stirred the paint while she thought. “But I guess they would look pretty crappy if they were left out all winter.”

  I nodded. “Weather isn’t kind to wood.”

  “There should be a better way, though. I’ll talk to Simon about it.” She handed me a paint roller, and we got started on the first coat of primer. It would dry fast in this heat, and we would be able to get the cream-colored faux stucco done b
y the end of the day.

  I had to laugh at her. “Don’t you and Simon have enough going on right now without worrying about that?”

  “Well . . .” She stretched up on her toes but still couldn’t reach the top of the booth. I wasn’t much taller than she was; we were definitely going to need to grab some assistants. Tall ones. “Yeah,” she finally admitted. “I guess we have enough on our plate right now.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” I refrained from an I-told-you-so and we painted in silence for a few minutes. “Anything you want to talk about?” I finally asked. “Wedding-wise?”

  “No.” Her denial was tentative. I didn’t push her in the lie. Instead I concentrated on coating the roller with more paint and attacking the next wall. We were good enough friends by now that she knew she could confide in me. But we were also good enough friends that I knew she talked about things when she was ready.

  I didn’t have to wait long. “It’s getting away from me.” Her voice was quiet. “Between work, and Faire, and the wedding . . .” She sighed. I raised my eyebrows in response but didn’t speak; she wasn’t done yet. “It’s too much,” she finally said. “I don’t know how it’s all going to happen, and Simon isn’t any help. He—”

  “Okay,” I said. “Take a breath.” I stretched on my toes and rolled paint as far as I could reach. “You know how Simon is about Faire. It takes over his life this time of year, right?” I didn’t look over at her to see her nod; I knew she was doing it. Faire wasn’t Simon’s true love the way it had been before Emily had come into his life, but it was still an all-consuming project. And all the help in the world, from Emily and Mitch and me, wasn’t going to change that. Simon was a make-lists-in-his-sleep kind of guy, and he always had been. I knew that. Emily knew that. At least I hoped she did, since she was about to marry the guy.