She tasted her drink and smiled.
“That’s not too bad,” she commented.
Surprisingly, we made it on time. I was glad I had my seatbelt on. Kara had spent a month in Germany driving on the autobahn. I read somewhere it had no speed limit. I think she forgot we have them here. This was almost as much fun as riding one of Devin’s toys.
KENDAL WAS AN ANGEL. She had stopped at a drive-through and bought us breakfast. Not the most ideal meal for my diet, but I was still hungry. She knew I got grumpy when I didn’t eat. Kendal came back to makeup to talk to me.
“So, were you being bad this morning?” she asked me, and I rolled my eyes at her.
Kara came up behind Kendal and scared the shit out of her.
“No, he was very, very good this morning! You should try it sometime,” Kara suggested.
Kendal was rarely without a comeback. I could tell her brain froze. Then the young assistant from yesterday came over and handed Kendal a sippy cup of coffee.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry I was unable to accommodate you yesterday. Mr. Hill went out and personally bought this for you,” she told her.
I looked back and Mr. and Mrs. Hill and all his staff were watching. Kendal looked at it, then at me.
“Wasn’t me,” I told her.
She knew she’d been set up. She played it off and took a sip. I heard everyone crack up. We could tell the poor girl wasn’t in on the joke. She looked around, worried. Kendal made her feel at ease.
“Thank you, that was very thoughtful of you. You’ll go far in this business with that kind of initiative,” she told her, and then turned to track down Mr. Hill.
He suddenly had to be somewhere else.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Kendal called as she fast-walked after him.
Chapter 20 – Do Anything?
Friday August 8
JIM AND I HUNG OUT with Alan and Jeff last night. I was still chuckling on my run this morning. Jim was complaining his legs, hips and butt all hurt from working out with the speed coach. His workouts were more focused on him getting out of his stance and getting back into position to block a defensive end trying to speed-rush him. He was still doing the things I did for when he had to pull and lead a running play.
It made me think: if I was going to try to play defense, I needed to be faster going backward. I would talk to Chris on Monday.
I went and had breakfast with Mom and Dad. She had news about Tami.
“Do you want to hear about Tami, or would you rather I not keep you up to date?” Mom asked me.
“Of course I want to hear about her. Just because we aren’t communicating doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
“What about the other way? Can I tell her about you?” Mom asked.
“Sure. I expect you would talk to a friend about your sons. I don’t want your relationship with Tami to suffer.”
“She made it to England and likes her host family. They have three kids, a girl her age and two younger boys. Being an only child, this is going to be something new for her. They’ve been doing day trips so she can play tourist.
“She told me she appreciated you being a gentleman and leaving Monical’s with Kara. You got big brownie points for considering her feelings. She also told me about your call to her. She was surprised you were acting so grown-up. She really hasn’t seen you on a daily basis for several months and seen the changes your dad and I have seen. I just wanted to tell you I’m proud of you.”
Dad and I talked bad about Greg. He hadn’t mowed the lawn yet. He was booked solid doing massages as he tried to put money away for when he and his family would be their own this fall at school. I handed Dad a twenty and told him to hire the neighbor kid who did most of the yards on our street. Dad said that for twenty bucks, he’d do it himself. If I’d known that, I would have been paying him for years. Well, maybe not.
I PICKED KENDAL UP and handed her a new thermal travel mug that didn’t leak. She just gave me a dirty look. She was still mad about the sippy cup. I think she would have cooled off by now if Mr. Hill hadn’t had one of his staff snap a picture. He sent it to me, and of course I sent it to Lily. Now everyone at her office knew about it because Angel followed me on Twitter.
Her office-mates had gotten into the spirit, and on Thursday, when she made it back to the office, they’d replaced all the coffee cups with sippy cups. Tom told me she was looking for payback.
“Good morning, Kendal,” I said with my best good-boy face on.
“Good morning, dead man! You and Mr. Hill made my list. Remember what I did to my big brother?” she asked me, and my eyes got big.
She had superglued his family jewels to his thigh when they were kids. I like my jewels too much to have that happen to them.
“What can I do to make this right?” I offered.
“No, you’re probably safe. Mr. Hill needs to be afraid. I also figured out who told the office. Angel is dead to me.”
“Speaking of which, has she gotten a copy of Eve’s new song yet?” I asked.
“Yes,” was all she said.
I had an MP3 player in my new Jeep. She plugged her phone into the car and hit play.
‘Romeo Rodeo, take five...’
Eve was right, I didn’t like it. I came across as a slick-talking Romeo who had a different girl in every town. When it was released, everyone would know it was about me. It was a bunch of ... well, I didn’t like it. She said I cheated on her every chance I got. The problem was, an outsider would have enough evidence to believe it.
“When will this be released?” I asked.
“It went out Tuesday,” she told me.
“And you’re just telling me now? What the hell, Kendal?”
Kendal could tell I was pissed.
“I’m sorry, David. I thought Eve had told you. She’s sent you a copy of each song before; I assumed she had done so with this one too. I thought you were taking it pretty well,” she added.
“Look, I didn’t mean to yell at you. This just sucks, though. This has nothing to do with reality. If anything, she left me,” I said, venting.
“I might as well tell you the rest. Remember when you said you’d do anything to help her career?”
“Just tell me.”
“Stone Mountain Records, her new label, wants to create music videos for the three songs. They want you to star in all three.”
“Shit!” was my only response.
She thought it was funny.
“So is that a yes?”
“Yes. I said I’d help.”
I didn’t have to like it, but I would help Eve if I could.
I FELT LIKE A SHRIMP at today’s shoot. They’d hired some bodybuilders to join me as gladiators. I did like the girls in their period garb. The director had the gladiators all oiled up, and we did several scenes before lunch. I was mostly in the background during the morning. After lunch, I was supposed to be more of a focus. At lunch, one of the men wanted to talk to me.
“You need to come to our gym. We could help you get bigger,” he told me.
I guessed that by their looks they all used steroids.
“I play football. I can’t do anything to jeopardize my future eligibility,” I told him.
“We can help you mask it. Everyone needs an edge,” he suggested.
“I don’t think it would be for me,” I told him.
“Where do you go to school?” he asked me.
“Lincoln High.”
“Do you know Tommy Cox and Brad Hope?” he asked me.
I got a bad feeling in my gut.
“Yeah, they go to school with me,” I told him.
“Their group has been working out with us. I think they’re going to do well this year.”
I prayed I hadn’t put one and one together and coming up with three. I hoped Brad was smart enough not to use steroids. He and the rest of the ass-hats could derail our season if they got caught using.