Page 38 of Base Block

“Did you do a lot of risky stuff before you straightened up and went back to football?” I quickly texted. Once again, I didn’t expect an immediate answer. That was good, because I didn’t get one until much later, after I had arrived at Heidi’s house. He wrote that he’d done plenty and he would share the parts that didn’t embarrass him, if I was interested. I wanted to hear all of it, but right now, Anara was telling us about the enormous amounts of apples that bears ate before they went into hibernation (not a real hibernation, she stressed a lot) and how obligate carnivores like cats couldn’t even digest fruit for various reasons.

“That’s fascinating,” Heidi said. “When I have my own kindergarten class, I’m going to invite you to come and talk to them.” She was crunching on apple skins, which had led us to this activity: she’d had a real craving but only for the skins, she’d texted, and she didn’t like to be wasteful so we were now using the rest for the sauce.

We were not using the seeds, because Anara had also told us about the tiny amount of cyanide in them. I removed those very carefully because I was more careful now. Had I ever been the kind of person to risk others? As I cut the fruit into chunks, I considered that but wasn’t sure.

We made so much applesauce that Heidi’s whole house was steamy, and we canned jars and jars and jars of it (Anara also talked about botulism, so we were careful doing that, too). Heidi promised to bring some when she came to pick me up tomorrow so that we could go to the game together, and it all took so long that it was pretty late when I went home. I was aware that Callum wasn’t tracking my location because the Woodsmen had that no-phone policy on the nights before games. A few times, Damian hadn’t tracked me, like when he was asleep or once when he was hospitalized after an overdose (Millie had explained it to his fans as “exhaustion”). I had been happy to know that I was free of him.

But I didn’t mind if Callum could see where I was, because it felt like we were linked together. Anyway, I knew that he wasn’t watching in order to catch me stepping out of line so he had ammunition to punish me. Now I looked at his location at the Wequetong Inn, where he was staying with the team. It was comforting to know that he was close, because I’d felt sort of off today. I had gotten another message that had started, “Girl, you better talk to me.” But it didn’t matter, because I was leaving the past behind me. That was all over.

The next morning, I was up early after some weird dreams and a few hours later, I was ready in the parking lot for Heidi to come and pick me up. I stood in the shade of the leasing office roof, because Callum had been right about the sun today. While I waited, I looked at the community bulletin board where people put up flyers and notices. There was an angry rant about bad parking and another about noise coming through the thin walls of our units. But what really caught my eye was something else, a yellow paper stapled on top of everything else.

“HAVE YOU SEEN THIS DOG?” it asked at the top. And underneath that was a picture of the big black and brown animal that had knocked me down! “Answers to ‘Maverick’ but skittish,” the flyer informed me. Then there was a phone number and the words “MUST CALL BEFORE 9/18.”

The guy who worked in the office as the onsite manager came to chat. He didn’t appear to have a lot to do so he often walked outside to talk, and he’d been the one who had told me that they couldn’t add an extra lock to our front door. He’d asked me to please let everyone know—Callum seemed to make him nervous so he hadn’t wanted to do it himself, I thought.

“That’s the dog who lived in 6C,” he commented, tapping the paper. “The occupant moved out yesterday but she couldn’t find him before she left. He got lost about ten times in the six months that she lived here.” He sounded annoyed. “I wish we hadn’t changed this complex’s pet policy. Life was easier without them.”

I had seen the big moving truck and had nearly been blocked in by it, and I had also seen that woman looking for Maverick. “She left without him?” I asked.

The former resident had a new job starting soon in Turkmenistan, he explained. He wasn’t sure how she’d planned to ship a dog there, anyway, but if someone didn’t find Maverick within the next few days, then she wasn’t taking any responsibility for him.

“That’s not very nice,” I said. “You can’t have a pet and then just move to Turkmenistan without it.” Why did people seem to think that they could run away from responsibilities? She had gotten that dog, and she needed to take care of him! “What if no one finds him before she goes?”

He wasn’t clear about that and anyway, Heidi was pulling up. I ran to put a big box full of jars of applesauce into my condo, and then rushed back down because Anara was more than ready to go. She had an idea that something was going to happen today.

“There’s anecdotal evidence that animals can sense impending disasters due to their heightened senses. Like they could feel a tsunami approaching and some researchers are trying to use them to predict earthquakes,” she told us.

“Are you saying that you have those kinds of senses? Or that there’s going to be a natural disaster?” Heidi asked. She glanced in the direction of Lake Michigan. But no, that wasn’t what Anara meant. She had a strange feeling but it also could have been due to the new protein shake she’d had this morning. It had tasted a little off, she told us.

It turned out that she was right. There wasn’t an earthquake and the protein shake stayed down, but something did happen at the game. Late in the first half, one of the guys on the offensive line stayed on the turf after a play and a few of the other Woodsmen came over to help him up. George ran out to kick a field goal, so we were all watching him instead of what happened on the sideline, and then it was the other team’s turn after that. We had to sit through the defense doing their best…

When it was time for the offense again, I watched Callum jog onto the field.

“Oh, look at that!” Heidi said. She nudged me, like I hadn’t also seen. “This is so exciting!”

It was, extremely. I held my breath as I watched him bend and get into his stance. The play started but it happened so fast that I felt like I hadn’t even taken it in. I watched the big video screen to see it again, but they only showed the wide receiver catching the ball, not the important action on the line that had allowed the quarterback to have the space to throw it. “Is there going to be a recording of this whole game somewhere?” I asked Anara, who said she would send me the link. But then the next play was starting and it went on Callum’s side of the field. He shoved off the defender person and the running back guy raced away, charging for a lot of yards until he was brought down.

“We’re on-screen,” I heard Heidi say to me, but I only kind of understood her words. I was occupied by screaming as loud as I could, shrieking his name and number and go, go, go! I was also apparently crying, because I felt Anara wipe my face with a napkin. Then I also heard Heidi scolding about cheese smears, and she started dabbing me with something wet.

But my eyes were on the field for the next play because Callum was doing so well. “Run! Run!” I screamed at the other Woodsmen player, a shorter one with gigantic quadriceps who was powering through all the defenders. He powered right through into the end zone, and then he went over to Callum and handed him the ball.

I felt like I used to when I had to avoid eating—my legs shook and I got dizzy. “Did he just get the game ball?” I asked and Heidi said no, because the game wasn’t over. The Woodsmen kicked off but then it was halftime, and I had a chance to recover.

“Look at me,” she ordered, and I turned in her direction. She shook her head at our other friend. “Anara, you got crap all over her!”

“I don’t care,” I told them. “Did you see that? He only got into the end zone because of the block! That’s why the running back gave Callum the ball, because that touchdown was due to him. He’s a hero!”

“Yes, it was great,” Heidi agreed. “Another napkin.” She held out her hand.

Anara handed it over. “I’m sorry, Rainey,” she told me. “I was trying to help because you were crying and they were showing you on the jumbotron. But I made you look like an Oompa Loompa by mistake.”

“I really don’t mind—I looked like what? They were showing us?”

“Mostly you,” Heidi said. “I think it was fine. Really fine.”

“But I had cheese on my face?”

“I got most of it off pretty quickly,” she assured me.