The Note I Showed Her in the Bleachers

Under The Lights

I did not call her ahead. What would I have said. I did one thing only.

I took Rick’s IOU out of the drawer with the rubber bands and read it one more time. His blocky hand, his whole name signed at the bottom.

Then I folded it back up and put it in my coat pocket.

Friday I did my hair. I do not know why. You do odd tender things for yourself before a hard day.

I curled it the way I used to and put on my good wool coat. I drove to the game early enough to park where I could leave quick if I needed to.

I bought a Frito pie at the booster stand because standing in that line steadied me. The chili smell, the mamas, the little kids.

I handed my three dollars to a girl I had taught in Sunday school a lifetime ago. She called me Miss Connie. I climbed the steps.

That is how I came to be sitting on that cold top row, telling a stranger that we knew some of the same people.

Tammy turned and really looked at me for the first time. She had a kind face. That surprised me, and I do not know why it should have.

Part of me had built her up into something hard and painted. Here she was, a tired pretty woman in a team sweatshirt with a diaper bag at her feet and her littlest asleep against her shoulder.

“Same people,” she said, careful now. “You from over my way?”

“No. I’m Connie. I believe you know Rick.”

Something moved across her face, quick. I watched her try to decide what kind of trouble I was. Her arm tightened around the sleeping baby.

“I know Rick,” she said slowly. “How do you know Rick?”

“He’s been my boyfriend for three years.” I kept my voice level, no heat in it, the way you talk to a spooked animal. “I think maybe you didn’t know that. I did too.”

She went white. There is no other word for it. The color just left her face under the stadium lights.

“Three years,” she said.

“Three years.”

“He told me he was divorced and done with all that.” Her voice had gone thin. “He put a trampoline up for my kids. Said he wanted to be a steady thing in their life.”

“I know about the trampoline,” I said. Here is where my hands finally shook a little. “I know what it cost. The backpacks, the tires on your Malibu, the light bill. I know to the dollar, Tammy. It was my money.”