Working Title 3

The small black cell phone is his pocket began to vibrate as he drove through his old hometown. Whenever he traveled back from his cross country project, he passed by his childhood home. Twelve hours in the car had worn him and he almost threw the phone out the window. "Delia is at the football game at your old school, want to get her on your way home and say hey to your old girlfriends." The text was too ridiculous to elicit laughter or return sarcasm. He pulled into the Kmart parking lot across from West Messenger High School. He had parked there as a high school student to avoid the small town combustion that would happen at sports events in Messenger. A brisk cool breeze blew as he walked across the highway. The memory came over him a wave. Cold November air chilled the warm sweat streaking his face. Mud caked against his dry skin. Blood trickled from a wound below his right bicep and collected inside his elbow. He looked up, slowly at the scoreboard and saw zeroes. It was over. The roar of three thousand small town high school football fans were muffled by the deafening stark reality that he would never do this again. He went through the motions of shaking hands with his celebrating opponents. Briskly, he walked off the field, and headed up the field house corridor. A football player, no longer. Delia interrupted the nostalgia, thankfully, he thought, by texting him. "You here :)." He answers, "Yes, sweetie, meet me next to the fieldhouse." He looked at the scoreboard and saw that his daughter high school, Kessington, visitors to the West Message Colts, were being blown out, 27-7. He laughed. During his time, his team was on the wrong end of such a score. He feels a hand on his shoulder and turns, seeing an familiar face and hearing a familiar voice, "Thomas Beckett, I never thought I would see you here." He was scared and pleased at the same time. The girl he'd walked off the field to, over twnety years earlier, stood before him. "I heard you were married again and living close by," she kept talking. He decided to humor her, "Yeah, Gwen, it's part of my mid life crisis therapy. My shrink says I should relive all of my traumatic moments," he doubted she caught the sarcasm. "You have barely aged, Tom. You hang around for long and every one of your middle aged West Message friends will hate you," she flirted. He didn't buy what she was selling. "Have you seen a little blonde 15 year old girl with face paint and a cell phone surgically implanted in her hand," he diverted her attention. "Tom, I have one of those to. Well, she's 16. When did you get remarried?" she asked. She saw him look down, as if, she had kept up with his life intrusively. She had. "I read it on the internet, Tom Beckett. You're sort of famous." He smiled and said "Two years ago. My wife's name is Suzann. Delia is the teenager I'm looking for. Gwen Oliphant, high school girl friend and cheerleader to Tom Beckett's high school football player, wanted to talk more. She found herself transplanted to a happier time. The football field took her back. Before she could keep the conversation going, Delia showed. "Hey. Sorry, bathroom was like completely insane. So crazy. I am so over this place. I love my school so much better." Tom smiled. He was  happy to see his daughter and to escape the awkward encounter. He hugged Delia, said goodbye, and called the only woman he wanted to flirt with.

"Tell me your secrets." Four words that they would regret. The baggage they brought into their relationship would fill out the cargo hull of a 747. Multiple marriages, financial failures, broken hearts, three children born to other people, hard partying histories, and fragile psyches only salvaged by therapy and religion. Yet, they spilled their guts to each other. She told him the worst thing she ever did. Then he shared his weakest moment. "In my wallet were three one dollar bills. Four strokes of a computer keyboard showed my checking account balance of three hundred and twenty three dollars. In my sweaty left hand was a check for seven hundred thousand dollars. His heart raced. His chest tightened. A middle class kid from moderate means; he now found himself monied. In my second year of brokering, I was everything I never thought I would be; corrupt. I traded shares of a company that didn't exist and, for a time, gotten away with the con. On the outside I looked accomplished. Inside, I was rotten. I quit the next day, anonymously turned in my fellow brokers and made a 700 thousand donation to a Children's Hospital. I'm sorry, Su. I'm very sorry. He looked at her spectacular blue eyes, expecting doom. Instead, she smiled. "You've never told anyone that, have you?" she asked. "No." She quickly responded, "Don't ever tell anyone else. They wouldn't understand like me. Thank you for being honest. That's the most amazing thing anyone has ever done for me." Thank God I'm going to be with this woman forever he thought, then he kissed her with everthing he had.