There’s a slight pause in my earpiece before Jerry speaks. “Thanks, Aubriella. Very interesting.” The tone of his voice makes it abundantly clear that he doesn’t mean a word he’s saying. “We’ll check back in at half-time for a score update.”
I hold my smile for three seconds until Eric lets the camera lens aim down and nods to me. I blow out an angry breath, wanting to throw the microphone, stomp my foot, or something to satisfy the urge I have right now to throw a full-on tantrum. Sometimes it’s just too much. The bills, the work I hate, the slimebag colleagues…all of it. It makes me want to scream. I don’t though. I do what I’ve always done. I bottle it up, swallow it down, and put on my best calm face.
“Hey,” says Eric. “I’m going to go grab a hotdog from concessions. Want anything?”
“How about a ten-dollar beer?” I ask wryly.
He chuckles. Eric has a receding hairline and is very loose around the waist, but he has a gentle kindness about him that makes him easily my favorite person at the news station. After all my talk of counting pennies and saving money, he knows I’m joking and walks off to get his hotdog. If it wasn’t for dad? Yeah, I could afford a lot of nice things. All things considered, I’m paid very well. I’m a single, twenty-six-year-old woman with no children and my rent is reasonable for a New York apartment. I’m just not paid well enough to handle his baggage. And the only sort of guy I ever seem to attract are the sort who wants to split dinner or forgets his wallet every other date. It’s not that I mind splitting the responsibility, but I can’t lie; it would be nice to date a guy who had deeper pockets for once.
I notice my phone lighting up in my clutch. I kneel down and pick it up like it’s a snake. A picture of my dad from ten years ago smiles at me from a circle on the front of my phone. I don't know why I haven’t changed the picture. It just reminds me how much he has changed, how much worse he has become.
“What is it, Dad?” I ask.
My hostility rolls right off him like always. “Just saw you on T.V.”
My stomach flutters a little. “You did? What did you think?”
“Yeah,” he says distractedly. “You’re like ten yards from Ronnie Fucking White, Aubs. Do you know what his signature is worth?”
I deflate a little. Of course. He wasn’t calling to say something nice or encouraging. He smells money. “I’ve told you before, Dad. It’s not professional for me to ask players for autographs.”
“Fuck professionalism!” he says, suddenly angry. “Look, that money you gave me on Wednesday is all tied up in an investment and they’re going to shut off the water and the cable if I don’t pay by tomorrow.”
Investment. That has been his long-standing codeword for booze. I pinch the skin between my eyebrows, pacing around the field, wishing I could just hang up. I take a few deep breaths before talking. “I gave you five hundred dollars. Do you know how many sacrifices I’m having to make to keep giving you money like this?”
“Oh sure. Big T.V. Woman can’t get new shoes this week, woe is me.”
“Please,” I say through gritted teeth. “Give me a reason to hang up on you.”
“Go ahead. If you try to call me in a few days and I don’t answer, it’s because I’m sitting in my dark fucking apartment with no working outlets to charge my phone. By the way, when are you sending over the money for my next payment? I went over on my data this month and it’s going to be an extra fifteen dollars.”
I hang up the phone and barely resist the urge to hurl it into the middle of the field. He’s unbelievable. The part that pisses me off most is that I’m going to give him the money. When Mom died, he was all I had. He did a shit job of raising me, but he’s still my dad, and I can’t just ignore his problems, as much as I might want to. I pull up his AT&T account on my phone and pay his bill. Then I pull up New York Electric and pay that too. Two month’s worth of late payments. $164.27. I do some quick mental math and come to the conclusion that I’ll be eating ramen and beans again this month.
I want to kneel down and rub my heel, which is actually killing me, but I think of Jerry’s slimy grin. Fuck you, Jerry. In a silent act of spite, I refuse to take off my shoes or rub my feet. Instead, I move along the sideline, trying to find Aria. In the constant shitstorm that is my life, Aria often feels like the only shelter. I know she’ll be here because she never misses a chance to use my credentials to get on the sidelines. Of course, she has no interest in the game. She just loves being close enough to check out the players.