The One & Only: A Novel (21 page)

A
week later, after we drummed Oklahoma State on the road to move up three spots in the polls, J.J. and his wife, Mary Ann, threw me a going-away party, even though I’d been insisting that I wasn’t really “going” anywhere and that everyone would see me just as often. I dreaded being the center of attention, and hoped that once things got under way, it would feel like a generic party with the usual athletic department suspects. But when I pulled up to the Justuses’ house and spotted Ryan’s black Porsche, I knew there would be nothing generic about the evening. Nothing ever was when Ryan was involved. I couldn’t help feeling a jolt of annoyance that he was here when I had specifically
not
mentioned the party to him or told anyone at work we were dating. I decided that Lucy had to have orchestrated the appearance of Walker’s golden child, as low-key was never her default position.

I got out of my car and walked inside the house, finding Ryan in the
foyer, handing Mary Ann a bottle of wine as she gushed about how thrilled she was to see him, how wonderfully he had been playing, how proud we all were of him. As they both spotted me and turned to say hello, I managed to change my attitude, shifting into grateful mode. I might not like this sort of thing, but it was really nice of everyone, Ryan included. He walked the few steps over to me, slid his arm around my waist, and kissed me on the lips, leaving little doubt about the nature of our relationship, while Mary Ann complimented my teal dress.

“I got it at Lucy’s. Thank you. And thank you so much for tonight,” I said as the three of us moved toward the living room, which was already filled with voices and laughter.

“Surprised?” Ryan whispered to me in the hall, his arm now casually draped across my shoulder.

“Yes. Very. Thank you for coming,” I said, smiling up at him, bracing myself for our grand entrance.

“Of course, babe. I wouldn’t have missed it,” he said. Then he kissed me once more, this time in plain view of Scott Street, our head trainer, and Tim Seymour, the academic counselor whom Coach jokingly referred to as “the grim reaper” because he only came knocking with bad news. Scott and Tim both looked surprised to see Ryan, and it occurred to me that my relationship would trump my new job, the former being the more impressive accomplishment in most everyone’s eyes.

Trying to act as natural as possible, I began my round of hellos and hugs, observing, as I frequently did at such gatherings, how eclectic the group was, just about as diverse as it could be given that we all worked at a small private college in Texas. Gay and straight, black and white, young and old. It was one of the things I loved about sports: all the built-in diversity and intense bonding that came with having one huge thing in common. We really were like a tight-knit family, as Mrs. Carr had always said. Although our patriarch had not yet arrived, Lucy was already working the room, with Neil at her side. Wearing a gorgeous coral pantsuit with several long strands of pearls, she glowed.
Even her hair had been freshly highlighted with wide streaks of golden blond. She rushed over to give me a big hug. Her mood was infectious, and I instantly absolved her from her ensuing admission that she and Ryan were indeed in cahoots.

“I know you don’t like surprises, but …”

“But what?” I said, smiling but trying to prove a point.

“But … 
sur-prise
!” she said, high-fiving Ryan as if they’d just completed a tactical military invasion. Meanwhile, Coach Carr made his understated but still grand entrance, in a polo and khakis, strolling over to us just as Ryan headed to the makeshift bar to get me a glass of champagne.

“Hello, girls. You both look so pretty,” he said, reminding me of how he talked to us when we were teenagers, before a dance or party.

“Hi, Daddy,” Lucy said, kissing her father’s cheek.

“Hi, Coach,” I said, feeling the warmth of being near him, while doing my best to push away my recent unsettling epiphany. “How was practice?”

“Other than the fact that our o-line is as useless as a screen door on a submarine?”

I burst out laughing, then recalled another recent colorful colloquialism slamming our linemen. “Slightly less damning than being an ashtray on a motorcycle?”

He raised his brow and said, “Maybe not. Least smoking on a bike won’t kill you.”

I smiled as Ryan returned with two glasses of champagne. He handed me one, then gave Coach a hearty, manly hug and told him it was great to see him.

Coach smiled and said, “You, too, son. Hell of a game last Monday night.”

“Yes, I heard you watched with Shea. And Miller,” Ryan said, with a calculated grimace.

Fortunately I had told Lucy about the odd Miller exchange with Ryan, so she was quick to defend me. “Yeah. Shea said it was annoying
the way he just showed up out of the blue and glommed on to her conversation with Daddy.”

I looked at her, thinking that hadn’t been what I’d said at
all
, but I knew what she was doing and appreciated her effort on my behalf. I still felt compelled to throw Miller a bone, though. “He means well,” I said, glancing at Coach, who nodded his agreement.

Ryan wasn’t going to let it go so easily. “He’s a mess.”

Lucy nodded. “ ‘Mess’ is an understatement.”

I changed the subject back to football, as Coach covertly checked his watch, confirming my suspicion that he had only shown up to be nice and was biding his time until he could leave. Sure enough, about thirty minutes later, after we’d both drifted into different conversations, he found me again, tapped me on the shoulder, and said he really needed to go prep for the next game.

I nodded and told him I understood.

“I brought you a little something. It’s in my car. Want to come out with me and grab it?” he asked.

“Okay,” I said, feeling happier than I should have.

“I meant to give you this thing the other night,” he said as we walked to the foyer. “But then Miller showed up … and I forgot.”

I nodded, both of us falling silent as we walked outside, then over to his car. I stood in the grass, watching as he opened the passenger door, reached down on the floor, and grabbed a flat, rectangular package, wrapped in brown paper.

He handed it to me and said, “Consider it a congratulations and good-luck gift rolled into one.”

Relieved that he hadn’t called it a “goodbye” gift, I took it from him and said, “I don’t know what to say … Thanks, Coach.”

“You’re welcome, girl,” he said, his eyes switching on, becoming all twinkly. “I’m real proud of you.” He bit his lower lip on the right side and said, “Now go back in there and enjoy yourself. And don’t let Ryan steal all your thunder.”

“Thanks, Coach,” I said again and very nearly hugged him.

I didn’t, though, just stood there as he got in his car and drove away. Feeling light-headed, I went back inside, hoping nobody had missed me. But as I stowed the package in the foyer, Lucy emerged from the hall powder room, her quick mind processing every detail.

“Where were you? What’s that?” she said, staring down at my gift.

“Outside,” I said. “Your dad gave me something.”

“What did he give you?”

I shrugged and said I didn’t know.

“Well, open it!”

“Later.”

“No. Now. I’m so curious to see what he came up with without my mother’s help!”

Her delivery was straightforward, but I knew her well enough to know what she was thinking. That he had gone to a lot of trouble for me, just months after he had completely forgotten her birthday. I felt a guilty pang as she scooped up the package and walked back toward the party.

“Look, Neil!” she announced as everyone paused and watched her. “My dad got Shea a present! Wasn’t that sweet of him?”

Neil nodded and smiled, but something in his eyes confirmed my hunch. It was fleeting, but I could see the look of sympathy or consolation. I was suddenly sure that they had discussed my friendship with her dad—and equally certain that she had confessed her feelings of jealousy—or at least frustration that she and her father seemed to have such trouble connecting when it was so effortless for him and me.

Ryan and a half dozen other guests followed her over to the sofa, where she instructed me to sit and open it. My cheeks burned as I carefully peeled back the paper to reveal a matted and framed newspaper article. I recognized it immediately as the first full-length feature I had written for my high school newspaper, nearly twenty years ago. It was a rambling ode titled “Why We Love Walker” along with a photo I had snapped myself of Coach Carr at practice, and another one of Walker’s then quarterback, Adam Gipe, dropping back in the pocket,
his arm cocked, ready for a bullet pass. Next to my byline, in a patch of white space, Coach Carr had scrawled with a Sharpie:
“We love you
,
too
,
girl. Knew you could do it! Coach C.”

As everyone processed what it was, there was a chorus of oohs and aahs as J.J. seized the moment to hand me a teal fountain pen and a Walker lamp, both of which I recognized from the school store. “This is from everyone here,” J.J. said, his voice turning formal. “To thank you for two decades of diligent service.”

“Two decades?” I said. “It hasn’t been that long.”

J.J. reminded me of the volunteer work I had done as a kid, detailing some of the more mundane tasks. I smiled, as Roxann Moody, our equipment manager, cupped her hand around her mouth and yelled, “Speech! Speech!”

Flanked by Lucy and Ryan, I bit the bullet and thanked everyone for coming, telling them how much I appreciated the gifts, then giving a special thanks to J.J. and Mary Ann, followed by a reminder that I’d still see everyone often. I closed by raising my glass and saying, “Go Broncos.” Everyone clapped and whistled, and I thought I was in the clear. But then Ryan quieted the crowd again and said, “I’d like to say something.”

I had no idea what he had up his sleeve, but I thought of what Coach had told me in the driveway. He definitely knew his former quarterback well. The room was absolutely silent, pure adoration on everyone’s face as Ryan continued. “I’d like to thank J.J. and Mary Ann as well for including me tonight,” he said, expertly pausing. “As always, it’s great to be back home, especially now that I’m with Shea. I just wanted to thank her for being the girl she is. And all of you for being so good to her. It makes me proud as hell to be a Bronco.”

Everyone swooned while I sweated, fanning myself with my hand, making desperate eye contact with Lucy, who knew exactly what I was thinking.
Make it all end.
Then, just when I thought it couldn’t get more uncomfortable, Ryan reached into his pocket and handed me a small wrapped box.

“Open it!” Lucy demanded, and I knew there was no stopping the
tide now, so I tore off the wrapping paper as quickly as I could, discovering a gray velvet box, the kind that houses expensive jewelry. Holding my breath, I opened the hinged lid, the room now completely silent as we all gazed down at two huge sparkling diamond studs.

“Congratulations, Shea,” he said, a cue for feverish applause and a few whistles.

“Holy shit,” Lucy gasped.

“These are … way too much,” I said to Ryan.

He shook his head. “No. They’re not.”

“Put them on,” Lucy said.

I froze. All I wanted to do was give them back to Ryan, but I knew that wasn’t an option, at least not now, so I took off my ordinary gold hoops and replaced them with the only real diamonds I’d ever owned.

Speechless, I looked at Ryan and shook my head, while everyone kept grinning and gawking. At me, at him, at the huge rocks now adorning my lobes. I made myself smile, trying to piece together how this had happened, how we got to this so fast, from sex to jealousy to diamonds.

I reached up to touch one of the stones, almost hoping that they weren’t real. Or maybe they were real, but Ryan was so wealthy that it was like a regular guy giving a girl flowers. Then again, maybe things really were getting serious.

Whatever was happening, I had no idea what to say or how to act or, most important, how to extricate myself from the spotlight. So I just kept my eyes down, staring at Coach’s framed article lying on the coffee table, and his sloppy, half-printed, half-cursive message:
We love you
,
too
,
girl.

That night, I tried to give back the earrings. Ryan refused, then got agitated. “They were a gift,” he said. “Do you always try to return gifts?”

“They’re too expensive,” I said for the third time.

“Not for me,” he said. “I can afford them.”

“But—”

He cut me off with a kiss and said, “Seriously, Shea. You’re going to piss me off if you keep this up. I bought them for you. I
want
you to have them. Now shut up.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding and kissing him back. Then I pulled my hair into a makeshift bun, turning my head from side to side. “How do they look?”

“Gorgeous,” he said. “Like you.”

“So are we really together … like this?” I blurted out.

“Like what?”

“Like diamond-stud-earring together?”

He laughed and said, “It’s looking that way, yeah.”

“Don’t you think it feels … fast?” I said.

“Yeah. A little,” he said, which made me feel better. At least he wasn’t pretending that this pace was normal. “But if you think about it—we’ve known each other forever. It’s not like we just met …”

“That’s true,” I said.

“And I’m very decisive. I know what I want.”

I smiled. “And what’s that?”

“You, baby,” he said, leaning down to kiss me.

I kissed him back, feeling like the luckiest girl in the world.