It Had to Be You Part 8

Phoebe gave a sigh of relief.

Dan insisted on showing her around the facilities, and their tour of the two-story, L-shaped building took much of the next hour. She was surprised by the number of cla.s.srooms she saw and mentioned this to Dan.

"Meetings and watching film make up part of most practice days," he explained. "Players have to learn the game plan. They get critiqued and hear scouting reports. Football's more than sweat."

"I'll take your word for it."

The coaches' conference room had a chalkboard at one end, which was scrawled with words like King, Joker, Jay-hawk, King, Joker, Jay-hawk, as well as some diagrams. The weight room smelled like rubber and had an elephant-sized Toledo scale, while the tiny video lab held floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with expensive, high-tech equipment. as well as some diagrams. The weight room smelled like rubber and had an elephant-sized Toledo scale, while the tiny video lab held floor-to-ceiling shelves stacked with expensive, high-tech equipment.

"Why do you need so much film equipment?"

"A lot of coaching involves watching films. We have our own camera crew, and they shoot every game from three different angles. In the NFL, each team has to send their last three game films to their next opponent exactly one week before they play."

She looked through a set of windows into the training room, the only truly orderly area she'd seen on her tour. The walls were lined with cabinets. There were padded benches, several stainless steel whirlpools, a Gatorade dispenser, a red plastic barrel marked "Infectious Waste," and a table that held dozens of rolls of tape in foot-high stacks.

She pointed toward them. "Why so much?"

"The players have to be taped before each practice, usually twice a day. We use a lot."

"That must take a long time."

"We have five tapers at training camp, three during the season."

They moved on. She noticed that the few women they met visibly perked up when they spotted Dan, while the men greeted him with varying degrees of deference. She remembered what Ron had told her about the boys' club and realized that Dan was its president.

In the veterans' locker room, the open lockers were piled with shoes, socks, T-s.h.i.+rts, and pads. Some of the players had taped family snapshots to their lockers. There was a soft drink-dispensing machine at one end, along with several telephones and wooden pigeonholes stuffed with fan mail.

After she promised him she would report back by ten the next morning, Dan left her in the lobby. She was so relieved to have gotten away from him without suffering any major injuries that she had already pulled the keys Annette Miles had given her to Bert's Cadillac from her purse before she remembered that she hadn't thanked Ron for helping her today. She also wanted to ask his advice on choosing the new general manager.

As she headed toward the wing that held the Stars' management, a stocky man carrying camera equipment came toward her.

"Excuse me. Where can I find Ron's office?"

"Ron?" He looked puzzled.

"Ron McDermitt."

"Oh, you mean Ronald. Last door at the end."

She walked down the corridor, but when she reached the end, she decided she'd gotten the instructions wrong because this door held a bra.s.s placard marked "General Manager." Puzzled, she stared at it.

And then her heart gave a sickening thud. She flew into a small antechamber, which held a secretary's desk and some chairs. The phone was ringing with all b.u.t.tons flas.h.i.+ng, but no one was there. She experienced a few mad seconds of hope that Ron was some kind of a.s.sistant, but that hope died when she rushed over to the doorway of the inner office.

Ron sat at the desk, his chair turned away from the door toward the window behind him. He was in his s.h.i.+rtsleeves, elbows propped on the arms of the chair.

She stepped inside cautiously. "Ron?"

He turned. "h.e.l.lo, Phoebe."

Her heart almost broke as he gave her a rueful smile. Despite his subdued manner, she permitted herself a flicker of hope. "Have you already-Have you talked with Steve Kovak?"

"Do you want to know if he's fired me? Yes, he has." She regarded him with dismay. "I didn't realize you were the general manager. Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought you knew."

"If I had, I would never have let this happen." Even as she said the words, she remembered her agreement with Dan. Part of that agreement had been her promise to fire the acting general manager.

"It's all right. Really. It was inevitable."

"But, Ron ..."

"I only got the job as a.s.sistant GM because my father and Bert were good friends. Your father was never impressed with me, and he would have fired me after six months if Carl Pogue hadn't gone to bat for me."

She sank into a chair. "At least someone was behind you."

"I loved working for Carl. We complemented each other perfectly, which was why Carl didn't want Bert to fire me."

"What do you mean?"

"Carl has good football instincts and he's a strong leader, but he's not exceptionally intelligent. I had the qualities he lacked-organizational ability, a head for business-but I'm a total failure as a leader. Carl and I had worked it out so that I'd do the planning and strategy work and he'd carry it through."

"Are you saying you're the one who was running the team?"

"Oh, no. Carl was in charge."

"Implementing your ideas."

"That's true."

She rubbed her forehead. "This is terrible."

"If it's any consolation, firing me was the proper decision. If a GM in the pros is going to be effective, everyone who works for him-from the office staff right up to the coaches-needs to fear him at least a little bit. The men don't even respect me, let alone fear me. I've got the brains to do the job, but I don't seem to have the personality. Or maybe I just don't have the guts."

"I do." She straightened in her chair, as surprised as Ron that she had spoken aloud the words she had merely been thinking.

"I beg your pardon."

Her mind raced. Bert had wanted her to be a figurehead. He had expected her to spend her days sitting in his old office, obediently signing the papers that were put in front of her and doing what she was told. It would never have occurred to him that she might try to learn something about the job.

She had vowed she wasn't going to play her father's game, and now she saw a way to fulfill the terms of the will but keep her self-respect. "I have the guts," she repeated. "I just don't have the knowledge."

"What are you saying?"

"So far, the only thing I know about football is how much I hate it. If my father had suspected that Carl Pogue would quit, he would never have let me anywhere near the Stars, not even for a few months. I was trapped into doing this, first by Bert and then by Dan Calebow, but that doesn't mean I have to do everything their way."

"I still don't understand-"

"I need to learn something about running a football team. Even if I'm only going to be in charge for a few months, I want to make my own decisions. But I can't do that without having a person I trust to advise me." She gestured toward the papers she still held in her hand. "I don't know anything about these men."

"The candidates for the GM job?"

She nodded.

"I'm certain you can trust Dan and Steve to have picked the best qualified."

"How do I know that?"

"Perhaps your cousin Reed could advise-"

"No!" She forced herself to speak calmly. "Reed and I never got along. I won't go to him under any circ.u.mstances. I need you."

"I can't tell you how much your confidence means to me."

She slumped in the chair. "Unfortunately, I promised Dan I'd get rid of you."

"His request wasn't unreasonable. I've been doing a dismal job."

"That's only because he doesn't understand what you're capable of. He doesn't know you the way I do."

"I've known Dan for several years," he pointed out gently. "You and I only met two hours ago."

She had no patience with that sort of logic. "Time isn't important. I have good instincts about people."

"Dan Calebow isn't the sort of man you should think about crossing, and right now, you need him a lot more than you need me. Winning football games is the only thing that counts in his life. I knew that when I convinced Carl to hire him away from the Bears."

"You're the one who hired him?"

By now, she knew Ron well enough to antic.i.p.ate what was coming.

"Oh, no. Bert and Carl made the final decision."

Based on Ron's hard work. "I need some time to think."

"I don't believe there's much to think about. You gave Dan your word, didn't you?"

"I did, but ..."

"Then that's that."

Ron was right about one thing, she thought glumly. She didn't like the idea of crossing Dan Calebow.

7.

The humid night breeze blew the curtains and ruffled Molly's dark brown hair as she sat in a rocker by her bedroom window reading Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. Rebecca. Although Molly knew she was flying in the face of literary criticism, she thought Daphne du Maurier was a much better writer than Fyodor Dostoyevski. Although Molly knew she was flying in the face of literary criticism, she thought Daphne du Maurier was a much better writer than Fyodor Dostoyevski.

She liked Danielle Steel a lot better than Dostoyevski, too, mainly because the heroines in her books survived so many terrible experiences that they gave Molly courage. She knew that in real life Danielle Steel had a lot of children, and when Molly'd gotten the flu at camp, she'd had wonderful fever dreams in which Danielle was her mother. Even when she was awake, she'd imagined Danielle sitting on the side of her bed stroking her hair while she read from one of her books. She knew it was a babyish thing to think about, but she couldn't help it.

She reached for a tissue and blew her nose. The flu was gone, but she'd been left with a minor respiratory infection. As a result, the headmistress at Crayton wouldn't let her have early arrival privileges. Phoebe had been notified, and Molly had been forced to come home just a few days after her sister's return to Chicago. Not that this horrible house felt like home.

She wished Phoebe would leave her alone. She kept making suggestions about renting movies or playing a card game together, but Molly knew she only did it out of duty. Molly hated Phoebe, not just because of the way she dressed, but because her father had loved Phoebe. She knew her father didn't love her. He'd told her more than once that she gave him the "G.o.dd.a.m.n creeps."

"At least your sister has the guts to stand up to me! You look like you're going to faint everytime I talk to you." He'd told her the same thing whenever she came home. He'd criticized the quiet way she talked, the way she looked, everything about her, and she knew he was secretly comparing her to her beautiful, confident older sister. Over the years, her hatred for Phoebe had settled into a hard sh.e.l.l around her heart.

The distant, hollow sound of the grandfather clock chiming nine made the big house seem even emptier so that she felt smaller and more alone. She went to the side of the bed where she knelt to pull out the object she kept hidden there. Settling back on her calves, she pressed a bedraggled stuffed brown monkey with one missing eye to her chest.

She rested her cheek on a bald patch in the fur between the monkey's ears and whispered, "I'm scared, Mr. Brown. What's going to happen to us?"

"Molly?"

At the sound of her sister's voice, Molly shoved Mr. Brown back under her bed, s.n.a.t.c.hed up The Brothers Karamazov The Brothers Karamazov, pushed Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca Rebecca beneath her pillow, and resettled in the rocker. beneath her pillow, and resettled in the rocker.

"Molly, are you in there?"

She turned the page.

The door opened, and Phoebe came in. "Didn't you hear me?"

Molly carefully concealed her jealousy as she looked at her sister's dusty pink jeans and matching crocheted sweater. The sweater had a deep V-neck with a scalloped edge that curved over Phoebe's b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Molly wanted to clutch Dostoyevski to her own chest to hide its lack of shape. It wasn't fair. Phoebe was old, and she didn't need to be pretty any longer. She didn't need all that blond hair and those slanty eyes. Why couldn't Molly have been the pretty one instead of a thin, ugly stick with plain brown hair?

"I was reading."

"I see."

"I'm afraid I'm not in the mood for conversation, Phoebe."

"This won't take long. School starts soon and there are a few things we need to discuss."

Phoebe's poodle scampered through the door and bounded over to Molly, who drew back and glared at her sister. "Where did that dog come from?"

"Since it looks as if I'm going to have to settle here for a while, I had Viktor put her on a plane."

Molly moved her feet away from the poodle as it began to attack her fuzzy yellow slippers. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't let it in my room. I'm highly allergic."

Phoebe sat on the edge of Molly's bed and reached down to snap her fingers for Pooh, who came to her side. "Poodles don't shed. They're good dogs for people with allergies."

"I don't care to have animals in my bedroom."

"Are you this unpleasant all the time, or is it just me?"

Molly's lips set in a mulish line. "I'm tired, and I want to go to sleep."

"It's only nine o'clock."