“She up there?” Mom leaned over and asked.
“Nope.” Slowly I turned back around so I could scan the crowd to see if she was sitting anywhere else. “I don’t see her.”
“I bet she didn’t come. If you read the book, then you’d know Stella Jane knew all about your little hiccup with Mac that involved Lucy.” Mom didn’t speak loudly because I knew she didn’t want anyone to hear in case they didn’t already know about the book, or at least my small story line to Stella Jane’s heroine.
“I’m not in the least bit worried, Mother.” I wanted her to know I was on to her little game.
“You should be. It took everything I had this afternoon not to give Stella Jane a good talking-to when she went back to the bookstore after Piddy had to come over and get her.”
Mom changed her tune from this morning when she’d offered to let Stella Jane stay at the apartment while she was in town.
“That’s what’s wrong with her.” Mom and I stood up with the rest of the crowd when the announcer told everyone to stand for the national anthem. “She needs a mother to guide her.”
“She has Elsbeth.” It wasn’t like Elsbeth was ill repute with manners. “Stella Jane is a grown adult. She will have to reap what she sowed.”
Thank goodness for the band blaring out the national anthem because Mom always sang it when it was played, and it stopped her from whispering to me about that darn book.
Stella Jane leaving Sugar Creek Gap couldn’t come soon enough.
The crowd erupted into hollering and clapping after the anthem. The football team started to jump around too.
“Why do they do that, Julia?” Mom leaned forward and reached out to touch Julia’s leg.
“They get all pumped up and ready to play.” Julia looked at Clara. “Do you see your daddy?” She turned Clara around.
“I’m telling you the bookstore made a killing today off Stella Jane.” Mom nodded, and we began to clap to the fight song. Mom spoke up louder since everyone around us was singing. “You know she only had the one signing, but her agent talked her into another one. She was none too happy about it either.”
“How do you know?” I asked and kept my eyes on Grady to see who had the kickoff since my older eyes made it hard to see to the middle of the field where the referee stood with the captains of the team during the coin toss.
“I was taking some things upstairs to store from the diner, and I overheard her talking.” Mom tried to convince me she hadn’t been snooping, but I knew better.
“But you have your storage downstairs.” I wasn’t going to let her get away with it.
“This was something I don’t use on a regular basis, Bernadette,” she quipped. “Are you going to let me finish my story?” she asked in an annoyed tone.
“Of course.” A smile came to my face when I saw Grady clapping really hard, which meant the Grizzlies were going to receive the ball.
The crowd went crazy, and then a few boos came when they also noticed the freshman quarterback was strapping on his helmet. The boos came from the senior quarterback’s family.
I reached over to Julia and gave her a slight pat so she knew I was supporting her. She smiled without looking at me. It was our way of not giving off any sort of public response because it would be reported how the coach’s mom and wife didn’t like the boos of the crowd. That would be turned around to mean that we didn’t like the choice he had made. It was a fine line.
When we settled down after the first sack of the young quarterback, Mom started up again.
“Like I was saying before you accused me of snooping” was exactly how she started off.
“Did I say you were snooping?” I asked and looked at her.
“I know what you were insinuating.” She crossed her arms and sat stick straight, her body language’s way of telling me she was starting to close off.
“Go ahead with your story.” Inwardly I groaned when the young quarterback got sacked in the back again, making us lose ten more yards.
“Fine. Only because you want to know.” That made her feel better. “I was passing by the apartment door when I overheard her complaining about Piddy and how Piddy had told her before the book signing that she didn’t appreciate any sort of reference, whether it was written in fictitious form or not, about her life. She also mentioned Piddy’s husband.”
“Elton?” I asked, knowing this was a good bit of juicy gossip because I wasn’t sure what Elton did or didn’t know about the real-life situation between Iris and Bobby Peters.
Mom nudged me and slightly nodded in the direction of the scoreboard that was located near the entrance to the stadium.
Mac had walked in. Iris was in line paying, and if my eyes weren’t deceiving me, Elton and Piddy Satterly were there.
Iris and Mac were regulars, but I’d never seen Piddy or Elton at a game. . . ever. Not even when Grady was in school and I came to every game. Not because he played. He didn’t. He was the student in the Sugar Creek Gap High School grizzly bear mascot costume. There had never been a better mascot since Grady, in my opinion.
Still, I was also the head of the boosters for a long time and still part of the boosters. I could put my hand up to God and promise I’d never, ever seen Piddy or Elton at a game, which made me wonder.
I tried to watch them as closely as I could to see where they went to sit, but the entire crowd leapt to their feet, screaming and yelling before the band played the fight song and the announcer screamed, “Touchdown!”
The game couldn’t’ve gone any better. The young quarterback proved to be everything Grady had said he was going to be. The boos turned into cheers, and the players on the sidelines made it very clear the young man was now an equal to them. It seemed like their approval was the glue the young quarterback needed to seal the game in a big win.
“Congratulations,” some of the parents and spectators told Julia when they walked past us in the stands after the game.
Not sure if they were talking about the big game win with the young quarterback, who happened to be as good as Grady had said, or if they were congratulating her on the birth of Clara.
Julia, as gracious as always, thanked them.
“How about that feeling?” I asked Iris while we all sat there to let the stands clear out and wait for Grady.
It was a tradition to walk back to the diner after the game and get a late supper. Since it was a big to-do for a lot of the crowd, Mom always put a table in the back of the kitchen for just us.
“You know, it went away.” Iris could’ve knocked me flat out and not surprised me a bit, but her feeling being gone totally shook my world.
“What?” I asked once we took our seats at the table and waited for Mom to bring over whatever she’d decided to fix for the crowd. “Your feelings never go away until something happens.”
“It was strange. I can’t explain it, but after I gave Piddy a good talking-to. . .” Iris was saying just as Angela Hafley walked in the kitchen of the diner.
“Grady,” she addressed him. “Can I see you for a minute?”
“Sure.” He glanced around, took the napkin from his lap, and placed it on the table before he scooted his chair back. “What’s going on?”