The Second Season by Emily Adrian

Author:Emily Adrian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2021-05-04T23:10:47+00:00

GAME THREE

Cincinnati, Ohio

Wildcats – Sonics

1-1

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The US Bank Arena, nestled between the interstate and the Ohio River, is not a building of which Ruth retains a mental map; but, as in certain airports, she arrives and finds she knows her way around. She has worked sideline here before, called a game or two. She locates Angie in a dressing room where, after an hour in the chair and an unanswered phone call to her daughter, Ruth hides a backpack containing everything she could need to survive Game Three: Ritz crackers, cinnamon Altoids, a toothbrush, Gatorade, extra makeup—plus various drugs that may or may not alleviate nausea, and which may or may not affect her pregnancy, which she may or may not keep.

And which she still has not confirmed—though, as the days pass, the unpurchased pregnancy test loses its allure, its authority. To pee on a stick seems to Ruth like a gratuitous ritual. A bit of a scam. Doesn’t she know her own body?

In the three days since Ruth first became aware of the hormones flooding her system, the nausea has come in waves. Each wave must crest before it breaks, pummeling Ruth on the shore of some bathroom floor. On the flight it was bad. The doggish smell of stale coffee teamed up with a flight attendant’s perfume to send Ruth rummaging through her seat pocket for the paper bag stashed behind the menus and optimistic water-landing illustrations. The bathroom in first class was occupied. Ruth shifted in her seat to assess whether anyone was paying attention. Across the aisle, Roxanne was hunched over her laptop, lost in a draft of her Emory-Darius piece. But was the businessman beside her a fan? Were Lester and Jay watching from two rows back? The sickness was a softball spinning in Ruth’s stomach, gaining speed, when the door to the toilet folded open and a man emerged wiping his hands on his jacket. Ruth threw herself into the bathroom and slid the lock. Puking in private was a win.

Since landing in Ohio her symptoms have mostly cooperated with Ruth’s schedule. Alone in a hotel room, dwelling on the unnerving yet familiar sensation of her uterus being pinched and stretched like pizza dough, any scent, any memory of a scent, might set her off. But throughout yesterday’s press conferences, production meetings, and an hour-long appearance on an Ohio network’s sports news program, Ruth held the queasiness at bay. The news anchor was an old friend from Georgetown, one of the boys on the basketball team with whom Ruth had gone to the Tombs to drink beer and yell at the television. Laughing with Brian, saying and meaning, “I’m thrilled to be here,” Ruth did wonder whether the pregnancy was in her head. A manifestation of her urge to self-sabotage. At this time next year she should be in the booth—not in a milk-sour bed with a newborn at her breast.

Two hours before tip-off, made-up and styled and sucking on a steady succession of mints, Ruth rushes to a theater in the west end of the tunnel.

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