Divisions (Dev and Lee) (43 page)

When Dev talks again, it’s in a more normal low voice. “Did you talk to the guys about the Firebirds job any more?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know what Rodriguez looks like. I think he’s a rabbit of some sort?”

“Jackrabbit,” Dev says. “I saw him up near the front.”

We stand in slightly awkward silence for another few seconds, and then I curl my tail around my leg and perk my ears up. “Okay, I’ll go see if I can talk to him. Here comes Charm, anyway.”

The stallion’s hard to miss, even if he weren’t laughing loudly at someone’s joke. He keeps laughing all the way back to the line, and when a coyote a couple spots behind says, “Hey, no cuts, kicker,” Charm flips him off with a big toothy smile.

“Gramps was savin’ my spot,” he says, and wedges himself back into the line.

“You guys might as well still be in grade school.” I shake my head.

Charm grins wide. “Except the girls are all grown up now.”

“Thanks.” Dev is still looking at me, but he smiles at Charm’s comment. “Really needed that image.”

“What else are friends for, eh, Gramps?” Charm lifts his beer and wraps the other arm around Dev’s shoulder.

“All right,” I say. “I’m going to try to find Rodriguez.”

I leave with the tension of our argument still between us, trying to dismiss it as I look for a jackrabbit in a suit standing near the owner. Finally I spot a jackrabbit in a neat tan blazer and jeans standing with Coach Samuelson. They’re talking, but not intently, just casually. I wait for Rodriguez—I hope—to look up, and catch his eye when he does. He flicks one of his long ears and nods at me, so I walk over.

“Dave Rodriguez,” he says, holding out a paw.

“Wiley Farrell.” I shake. “I talked to your assistant about the outreach position you’re hiring for.”

“You want a drink, Dave?” Samuelson lifts a paw. “Gonna go talk to some players on my way to the bar.”

“Sure. Rum and Coke.”

The wolf nods and walks off. I turn my ears to follow his progress and hear him greet a couple players before Rodriguez meets my eyes and says, “So, the outreach position. This is…for the gay community, right? Oh!” He smiles and his ears stand straighter as he points a finger at me. “You’re Miski’s, uh…partner.”

“Right. I talked to Myrna a little while ago.”

“Yeah.” He folds his arms. “She sent me a note about that call. We do want to keep talking to you, but, you know, not here.”

“No, no. I just wanted to introduce myself. And maybe, if you have a few minutes…”

He checks to make sure nobody’s waiting to get his attention. “Sure.”

“Well, we can save specifics, but I wondered if you had just a few minutes to tell me in general what you think the goals of the position would be? Like, why are you thinking of establishing it?”

He frowns. “Well, um…” He kind of looks past my shoulder and then back at me, and his ears flag a bit. “We were considering this position because we were told we had a resource in-house, or close to in-house…I’m sorry, I thought Myrna told me that you’d offered to do some outreach for us and we were trying to set up this position to accommodate that. Did you—I mean, is that still the case?”

“Oh.” I frown and then rub my paw beneath my muzzle. “No, I’m definitely offering. I just thought you were establishing the position because of Dev coming out.”

“We’d talked about maybe leveraging that, but I’ve been a little busy with the football side of things.”

“Great job getting Strike on the team, by the way.”

“Thanks.” His smile widens and he stands straighter. “So I haven’t been on all the other discussions. My time’s a little more free now, but I’ll be traveling to Hellentown. Do you have time on Tuesday—or are you coming to Hellentown with Miski?”

“I think I am,” I say. “I’m not really sure. I might be too much of a distraction.”

“Bullshit,” he says, then holds up a paw. “Sorry, that’s your decision. Lots of the players like to travel alone, some bring the wives along with them. But Miski’s been playing better since he came out, seems like he’s more comfortable being himself, and I gotta suspect you, as his partner, have something to do with that. So I say you should go along.”

“Thanks.” I don’t know how to respond to that unexpected affirmation. “I think I’m a distraction now because, well, I used to be a pro scout, don’t know if you knew that…” He shakes his head. “Anyway, one of these college players I was scouting was gay. He wrote to Dev. And then just over a month ago, he killed himself.”

Rodriguez looks sympathetic but not horrified. “That’s a real tragedy,” he says. “I’m sorry to hear about it.”

“And it looks like it was because his family was trying to get him ‘help’ for being gay, and he felt isolated at school…” I stop my rambling and collect myself. “Anyway, I feel like Dev could really help some of the gay kids out there, anyone who’s feeling isolated and like they have nobody to look up to.”

“Sure,” Rodriguez says. “But he already has, right? I mean, he came out, and that was a whole circus for all of us.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You got calls?”

He goes all serious. “I can’t really discuss anything other teams might have talked about. But I was on the phone with the union rep and the president of the Players Association and…nothing bad, just trying to figure out what our positions and liability and all that might be, and make sure we were all on the same page. Ultimately it wasn’t an issue. We made some statements to the gay rights groups and talked to a couple reporters and it blew over for us. But he’s still out there, doing ads and stuff. So he’s being that role model.”

And of course, Rodriguez has more of an interest in Dev as a football player, which means less interest in Dev as a spokesperson for gay rights. “You’re right,” I say. “I’m looking at some stuff in the off-season, maybe meeting with some politicians to work on legislation, doing some spots with the equality groups.”

“Hey,” he says, “you two should get married. That’d be a good thing, right?”

“Uh, I guess so.” My ears go all every which way.

“If you’re ready for it.” He laughs, kind of nervously. “I don’t know how that works.”

“Works the same as any marriage,” I say. “We have to feel it’s right, and then someone has to propose.”

“Right. Well, look, about this outreach thing, I’d still like to talk to you. I think we could build a good fan base not just here in Chevali—let’s be honest, there ain’t much in the way of progressive thinking down here—”

“It’s not that bad.” I think about Brian and Paula, and the half-immigrant couples.

“—yeah, but it’s not that great. Anyway, I think maybe we could build it up in Port City, in Yerba, in Crystal City even. You know, the big urban areas on the coasts. Sell some more jerseys and shirts out there. The team’s behind him and it’d be nice to get some stuff out during the playoff push.”

“What about in the off-season?”

The animation drops from his expression, and his long ears flag. “Yeah, obviously I can’t discuss that right now.” He softens. “Mostly because I don’t know. I mean, anything might happen. Port City calls up and offers us Van Near and a draft pick for him, we’d have to look at that, you know? I’m not saying that’s been mentioned, it’s just an example.”

“I don’t talk to the papers.” I grin. “Full disclosure: I did interview for a scouting position with Emmanuel, over at Yerba.”

“Oh, yeah!” He brightens. “Good guy. I like him. They run a class organization over there. So—well, look, we can finish this up later. Myrna’s got your number, right?”

He glances up over my shoulder, and I hear the coach approaching behind me. “Sure,” I say. “I’m not doing much at the moment, so at your convenience.”

“Thanks for coming over—Wiley?”

“I go by Lee.” We shake paws, and I leave him and the coach to their conversation.

Dev and Charm are still in line for their checks, but near the front of it. It looks like the owner is handing them out personally and shaking paws and saying a few words to each player, so it might be a little while still. I scan the room for someone else I know. Pike stands out, a mass of white, Kodi still glued to his side. But there, off to the right, I spot tiger stripes, and move toward them. Gena and Fisher come into focus, talking to a coyote—I think it’s Gerrard, but then I get closer and see that he’s more muscular than Gerrard. Probably Dev’s backup, Raef Zillar—Zillo. And actually, Fisher is talking to him. Gena’s just standing there sipping a mixed drink.

When she catches my eye, she brightens, and that makes me feel good. She actually comes around the back of Fisher to say hi to me. “Thank God,” she says. “They’re talking about car racing. How are you doing?”

“Pretty good.” It’s a shorter answer than “trying to figure out why someone—probably Dev—told the Firebirds I wanted to work in gay outreach.”

She lifts her glass to her lips. “Not drinking? They make a pretty good gin and tonic.”

I shake my head. “I’m the designated driver.”

“Lucky me. Fisher’s not allowed to drink much with his medications.” She grins and tosses back another swallow.

“How’s he coming along?” He looks pretty good from what I can see, dressed up in a nice suit, very animated as he talks to the coyote.

“He’s going with the team to Hellentown, thank God.” She shakes her head. “I love him, but it’s been just one thing after another. Feels like he’s been in a cage and he’s blaming me for it, partly.”

I look across the room. Dev and Charm are still kind of in the same place, or at least, the top of Charm’s head is. I can’t see who’s holding up the front of the line. “That can be rough. I mean, he’s going to have to adjust to life after football.”

She hushes me theatrically. “For God’s sake,” she laughs. “Don’t tell him that. I tried to start, but he just got so worked up about it that I had to focus more on how he’d be back playing before the end of the season.”

“Maybe in the off-season. It can be hard for people to adjust to a new kind of life.”

“Mm-hmm.” She looks at me over the rim of the glass as she takes another drink. “Easier when you’re younger. How are you doing it?”

“Trying to rediscover my life.” I smile. She looks curious, so I go on, telling her a little about wanting to do scouting again but also about my renewed interest in activism.

“Sounds nice.” She swirls the drink in her glass. “Once the boys are off in college, in a couple years, I was thinking about taking up some charities. Something Fisher can get interested in, too, because he’ll be home by then. I’d like to do something good and make a difference.”

“Lots of people join the gay rights movement on behalf of friends.” I’m not quite sure we’re close enough for me to make that pitch, but she is a little tipsy, and after all, I’m not binding her to anything.

She smiles. “I wish you guys the best, but I’m not sure I’m the best person for that. I have relatives back in Chapura, and there was that chemical plant spill…”

“And the deforestation, sure.” It’s hard to argue that that’s more or less important than the right of gay kids to feel safe, or the right of gay people to feel equal. It’s certainly a worthy cause.

She nods. “Fisher has enough money saved that we could make a difference. And if they win another championship, the endorsements…”

I tilt my muzzle. “He has an agent, right? Do you do anything to manage his career?”

“A little.” She wiggles her paw. “I set up local appearances, but I work with Damian on those. He sets up the endorsements and I just make sure Fisher gets to the shoots.” She smiles. “Sometimes it’s harder than other times, but I haven’t had to worry so much about it lately.”

“I’m sure it’ll pick up. Maybe he and Dev can do a commercial for the playoffs. Tiger pride, or something.”

She nods. “Damian’s tried to work the tiger angle a couple times—he’s one, too. Less of that lately, and more of building up his image through stories in the press, ‘veteran at the end of his career’ kind of stuff. It’s been harder with the injury.”

“I know a lot of Dev’s teammates have been interviewed about playing with him. There was a feature on Gerrard in the Chevali paper that got picked up nationally.”

“Well.” She laughs. “He’s got his own publicity machine. Some of the things that go on and don’t get reported…”

My ears perk and then settle back. “I guess that sort of thing happens on any team.”

Gena laughs. “Well, I’m not saying Fisher didn’t have his own little indiscretions…” She lowers her voice, sliding her eyes back to where he’s still absorbed in conversation with the coyote. “I left him once. Went to stay with a friend of mine. I told him that if he was going to fool around on the road, it better not be with other tigers or we were done, I’d take the cubs and go live with my mother.” Her eyes are firm and a little moist, and her breath smells strongly of gin as she leans in toward me. “I would have. But he came back, we went to a little counseling, and he’s been good since then.”

How good? How can she be sure? But at least he’s been discreet. “I’m glad the cubs have both of you,” I say.

“I’d rather they just have one devoted parent than one parent who has to deal with the other parent constantly not being sure what his commitment is…” She stops and drains the remainder of her drink. “I’m glad he didn’t go. It’s easy for me to say I would’ve taken the cubs, but it would be so hard without him. Not just raising the cubs, but…we’ve been together a long time.”

I nod. “My parents just split up after twenty-five years.”

“I heard, from Daria.” She puts a paw on my shoulder, then removes it, looking unsure. “Your father seemed okay at Christmas.”

“He’s dealing with it, trying to cope with it.” And the phone call with Mother. I clench my fists, shouting echoing in my ears until I have to flatten them against my head, teeth gritted.

“It’s hard,” Gena says. “So hard.” She shakes her head.

“Sometimes it’s a good thing.”

I’m grateful that Dev’s paw lands on my shoulder then. I turn, and Gena smiles up at him. “Got your check?”

He brandishes the paper. It’s got a fancy Firebirds logo on it and gold seal. “Can’t wait to drop this off at the ATM.”

“Can I see?” He holds out the check and I take it carefully. In computer-printed script it says, “Pay to the order of Devlin Miski,” and under that, “the amount of 41,200 and 00/100 dollars.” The signature, Corcoran’s, looks like it’s in real ink and not just a stamp. “He hand-signed it?”