The Franchise by Patrick Jones

Author:Patrick Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lerner Publishing Group

TWELVE

September 15 (Saturday)

“Thanks for letting me bring my dirty clothes,” I told Roxanne.

“Sure thing,” she said.

As she loaded the dryer with the clothes I’d take to Dallas, I gazed at the football shrine that was Franchise Foley’s basement. There were photos of great plays and endless trophies in a cabinet. One corner must have had fifty jerseys, hanging from a rack. In another corner stood a life-size cardboard cutout of Frank at the height of his career, smiling, holding his helmet against his hip.

Roxanne finished loading the dryer and joined me in the shrine. “Dad has lots of memories down here.” She walked to the jerseys and touched one. “He’ll come down here and sit for hours with the lights off.”

“Why with the lights off?”

“He says he can hear the crowd that way.”

It made me think. Seventeen seasons, every Sunday, playing at the bottom of a Miami or Denver or Buffalo stadium bowl, thousands of eyes on your every move.

Roxanne stood in front of me and grabbed my hands—not in a romantic way, but like she was hanging on for dear life. “Promise me you’ll look after Dad in Dallas.”

“No problem.” I laughed when I said it, but she looked at me hard and serious.

“No, you have to stay with him. That place is huge. He’ll get lost in the stadium if you don’t.”

It was sad, listening to Roxanne talk about her dad like he was two years old, like he was the child and she was the parent. Did that make me a babysitter? “I’ll stick with him, Roxanne.”

She raised her hand and touched my face. “Thank you,” she said. She leaned in. I leaned in soon after, and there, in the shrine to her absentminded father, we kissed.

She drew back. “When you come back, we can spend time together, maybe go to a movie.” Her lips felt soft.

I leaned in. Before our second, longer kiss, I said, “I like movies, too.”

Frank called from the top of the stairs. “Latrell, MSU just kicked off to Ohio State.”

I giggled, and Roxanne did, too. We’d just had our own kickoff of sorts.

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