Gift for Alex Jane
Dan/Natalie
For Alex Jane. Always nice to find someone else who enjoys this pairing. :)
Set around the end of the 2003 college football season.
Natalie spends Thanksgiving at her apartment, with Chinese food and cheap wine and a season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. It's the season with the evil government agents, which is not her favorite and not the show's best work, but it's better than driving home from Chicago and spending a few days being creatively redefined as inadequate.
She calls her parents at noon and talks to everyone at the family gathering, pitching her voice up to sound cheerful and chipper, and opens the bottle of wine at one-thirty after throwing a pillow on top of her cell phone that stubbornly refuses to ring. Her team isn't working today, but she told every producer on the floor to feel free to call her in if they needed an extra pair of hands.
"That's how you get ahead," she tells her cat, who licks his tail and ignores her completely. "By being willing to go the extra mile. Being dedicated. Going after it." She takes a sip of her wine and wonders if drinking from the bottle is still tacky if there's no one around to see you but an overweight tabby. "But that doesn't work if they don't take you up on it."
Four hours later, her head is swimming with vampires, the wine bottle is empty, and the cat is industriously cleaning up the cold rice and sauce she spilled on the couch. The phone is still under the pillow, because while she may be drunk, she is not a fool, and drunk-dialing is absolutely the refuge of fools.
Drunken e-mailing, on the other hand, has not yet been categorized. She'll worry about that later. Whenever the replies come in, most likely.
**
The next morning, sure enough, she has confirmation that "foolish" is indeed the correct category.
Item one is a notice informing her that she's been banned from commenting on Jeremy's sports blog. (Not exactly a big loss, since she'd never commented before last night, just yelled at her laptop and sometimes sent sarcastic e-mails to Dana.)
Item two is a very polite and very confused reply from Casey, who has no idea how anything Larry Fitzgerald has done is his fault, but is sorry regardless, as he really doesn't want her to try to explain it. (She's pretty sure she remembers him advocating for Fitzgerald at least once on his new show, which doesn't necessarily make Fitzgerald his fault, but he's definitely tainted by association.)
Items three through five are nearly identical messages from Dana, Kim, and Elliot containing links to home hangover remedies. (Ha ha, very funny. She has hot tea and Ibuprofen and she'll be just fine, thanks.)
Item six is from Isaac, demanding to know how he got on this mailing list anyway. (It's the "CSC Embittered Expatriates" mailing list, Isaac, how do you think?)
And item seven is from Dan.
The littlest Manning makes for a good story and you would produce one hell of a package on it, Nat, but it's over and done with. Jason White's going to walk away with it and then lead Oklahoma to a national championship. Watch and see.
She sips her tea and studies the screen for a moment, not sure if she should just let it lie, let her embarrassment fade into old-mail folders and the wine stain on her couch. Exercise a little self-control, Natalie, it's for the best.
**
Her self-control lasts for an hour and a half, finally crumbling in the middle of a department store, where she has gone less because she enjoys shopping in the crazed Black Friday crowds and more because she can't take the accusing stares of her cat and the package proposal that has to be finished by Monday. Eli Manning is sitting there in the back of her brain, looking sad and disappointed, football in hand, wanting to know why he can't have a Heisman Trophy and a slickly-produced one-minute spot on why he's so much better than his brother. She drops a cashmere scarf that she doesn't even like into someone else's basket, digs her cell phone out of her pocket, and texts Dan.
jason white is boring!
She stares down at the screen and taps her foot, waiting for an answer, ignoring the swirl of people trying to get around her and their increasingly vocal suggestions that she move over by the shoe racks.
The phone finally chirps. That's not actually relevant to football.
She glares at the screen for a minute and then hits the dial button. "It's relevant to me," she snaps as soon as he picks up. "It's hard to make boring people into good TV."
"That's why they pay you the big bucks." Dan's voice is slightly amused and completely unruffled, and it takes the indignation right out of her for a minute.
Only for a minute, though. "He's completely bland! There's no drama."
"The two years of torn ligaments and surgeries don't count as drama? I think every other producer out there would beg to differ, Nat."
She's missed this more than she thought. "Don't you feel bad for Eli?"
"I imagine the pro contract he's going to have will ease the pain."
She frowns down at the hideous collection of candy-colored sweaters on the table beside her. "I imagine Peyton is going to pin him down and give him noogies."
"Well, yeah, that too." Dan laughs softly, the sound wavering as he shifts the phone from ear to ear. "Maybe you can console him personally at the dinner."
She runs her finger along the collar of a particularly ugly yellow thing. "At the what now?"
"The Heisman dinner."
She shrugs as if he can see her. "I'm not going."
"Of course you are. We all are."
"You guys all are. I can't." Maybe she should buy the yellow thing. It's probably very trendy. So what if it's unbelievably ugly?
"Natalie, we've been discussing this on the mailing list for weeks."
"I am aware of that."
She can picture him in the long seconds of silence before he replies, can imagine him closing his eyes, mustering his patience. She smiles faintly down at the sweater that she yes, absolutely, is going to buy. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"You're all so enthusiastic about having the CSC reunion table '03. It seemed rude to mess with your fun."
"That isn't being rude, that's passing on necessary information. It isn't exactly a reunion without you." There's another pause and she imagines him fidgeting in his chair, frowning at his phone. "Why can't you come?"
"We're not sending anyone. Getting the coverage from the national team." She folds the sweater over her arm. "Anyway. I should get going. I'm out shopping, I just wanted to..."
"You called me from shopping on Black Friday to tell me that Jason White is boring?"
"Well, I was thinking about you, Danny." Someone put the scarf she was looking at before back on the rack. She grabs it again and folds it up with the sweater. There must be someone she can give that to for Christmas.
"You think about me, you think about boring quarterbacks? Natalie...this is ridiculous."
"What is? The fact that you're not a quarterback? My guess is that it has something to do with you not being a football player." Maybe she should get two scarves. They have them in red and black.
"No, not that."
"And that you're kind of uncoordinated."
"I meant the fact that you're not coming to New York."
The scarves are stupendously ugly as well. She should put all of this back. "Yeah, well, that's life, Dan."
"Take the days off work."
"Excuse me?"
"Get those days off work and start packing. You're going to be my date."
She stops halfway back to the sweater table and blindly grabs a metallic blue jacket off its hanger. "Danny, I really don't have time to play games right now."
"I'm not playing. I'm flying you out to New York for that weekend. Buy yourself something pretty to wear."
"Buy myself something pretty? What are you, a gangster? Or my sugar daddy?"
"The plane ticket says yes, the fact that I'm not paying for the dress says no."
"Dan..."
"Please, Natalie?" His voice softens. "It won't be the same without you. I want you there. We all want you there."
She puts the jacket back on its hanger and hugs the sweater to her chest. "You don't have to pay for the ticket."
"I've already got the booking open on my computer."
"Don't do that, I have to see if I can get the time off."
"You must have vacation days. Or sick days."
She should get those scarves after all. "The Heisman dinner doesn't count as a sick day."
"Aren't you homesick?"
"New York isn't my home." Two red scarves and a black one. She'll figure out who to give them to later. She has to get out of this store.
"Natalie." It's his patient voice, his dealing-with-the-crazies voice, and it used to infuriate her, but right now she finds herself stopping again in the middle of the aisle, her arms full of overpriced knit goods and her eyes inexplicably full of tears. "Aren't you homesick?"
She exhales slowly and blinks hard against the lights. "Okay."
**
It's odd to see the names she's used to framing as mythic heroes, Achilles and Hector reincarnated in pads and Spandex, revealed up close and personal to be very young men in expensive suits that they wear without any grace or ease. The press lines are done with them for now, and they're gathered around the trophy, a huddle of muscles and wide eyes and gentle, anxious bullshitting. They're like puppies. God, it makes her feel old.
She jolts forward as a body hits hers from behind, the arms wrapping around her chest and shoulders the only thing stopping her from falling. "Natalie!" a voice squeals in her ear, and she realizes it's Dana, of course it's Dana, who else would tackle her from behind in the middle of the Yale Club?
"You look amazing!" Dana bubbles, hugging her again once she's steady on her feet again and turned around to face her. "Look at you. Wow. Chicago has been good to you."
"You look great too. Your hair!" She doesn't mean her hair at all, though it is very nice; Dana looks happy, content, fulfilled. Dana looks like she's found a place in the world where she's challenged and valued and driven crazy in a good way, at work and at home, and Natalie's glad to find that here in person she doesn't feel the hot twist of jealousy that always hit her when she heard about Dana's life over the computer or the phone.
Dana touches Natalie's face and smiles. "I've missed you."
"Dana, we talk almost every day..." Dana frowns and shakes her head slightly, her eyes sharp and meaningful--you know, Natalie, they say, you know-- and Natalie bites her lip and nods. "I missed you too." She reaches for the bag she shoved under the table when she arrived. "I brought you a scarf."
Dana winds the length of red cashmere around her hands, laughs, and hugs Natalie again. Natalie closes her eyes tight and lets the low drone-to-a-roar of the crowd fill her ears and empty her mind, taking a moment to just feel home again.
"I feel like we should mark the occasion," comes a voice from behind her, Dan's voice, and she steps back and wipes the back of her hand across her eyes. Dan and Casey walk up to the table comfortably in stride, perfectly matched in dark suits, neatly distinguished by bright ties. "Casey, you must know a speech or something other than St. Crispin's."
"Give me another hour and a few more glasses." Casey stumbles as Dan abruptly stops walking. "Danny, watch where you're..."
"Oh, I'm watching, Case," Dan said, a broad grin spreading slowly across his face. "Now show a little respect to the ladies."
"I don't see any ladies," Casey says, deadpan. "Just Dana and Natalie."
"You always were a philistine, Casey." Dan reaches out and takes Natalie's hand, kissing the back of her fingers in an elaborately courtly gesture that makes her laugh despite herself. "Miss Hurley, when it comes to buying something pretty, you follow directions well."
"You're a dork, Dan," she says, tugging her hand free and smiling at him. "And let's rephrase that to a suggestion, not a direction, before I have to smack you in the middle of this classy establishment."
"Eh, it's over the top," Casey says, looking around the room.
"Ignore him," Dan says. "He has Ivy envy."
"I do not."
"You do. Stop it." Dan's eyes haven't left Natalie, and his smile hasn't faltered. "You really do look great, Natalie."
"Thanks." She smooths the front of her dress and carefully ignores the look Dana is giving her. Turnabout may be fair play, but she can deny it as long as humanly possible. "So. What now?"
"Now, we dine." Dan nods to where the master of ceremonies is approaching the podium, and waiters are peering out from the kitchen entry. "We drink, we watch several young men have one of their dreams crushed, and then there is the option of dancing."
"And then I get to hug Eli Manning?" Natalie sits down and straightens her skirt, grinning at Dan across the glassware. "You promised I could console him."
"If you can get to him, you can hug him, and then I promise to get in security's way while you make the hundred-yard dash to the door."
"He's a big, bad, football-playing boy, he doesn't need security."
"He's kind of used to having the offensive line, at least," Casey says absently, draining his glass. "Dana, why do you keep hitting me?"
"I'm not hitting you," Dana says, narrowing her eyes at Natalie.
"Yes, you are, a lot, in the ribs, and it hurts."
"She's trying to get your opinion on something," Natalie says with exaggerated sweetness, pausing to take a sip of her own champagne, "discreetly, but she's not very good at that. And anyway, there's nothing to get an opinion on, it doesn't exist."
"What is she talking about?" Casey asks Dan, raising his eyebrows helplessly.
"It's women-code, don't worry about it," Dan shrugs.
Dana points across the table at Natalie. "I don't miss you at all anymore. I revoke that I ever missed you. Secret-keeper."
"No secrets, Dana," Natalie says, her eyes wide with all the innocence she can muster. "And don't make me take that scarf away from you."
"You'll get that scarf out of my cold, dead hands, missy."
"Ladies and gentlemen," comes the MC's voice over the polite, discreet, eminently classy Yale Club sound system, shutting them up by default, "good evening and welcome."
**
Dan's idea of an option of dancing was somewhat overstated. After the ceremony, it's mostly milling and drinking and bullshitting, which somehow makes the room feel crowded even though it's emptied by a third as the people here to provide actual coverage vanish.
Natalie ends up tucked away in a corner, sipping seltzer because she's had too much champagne to mingle and network. Not that she feels inspired to do that anyway; tonight feels strange, dissociated, dreamlike. It's not normal for her and she knows it; she should be out there making contacts, not leaning her head against the wall and watching the way the light plays across wood and glass and silk.
"Young Mr. Manning is currently unguarded," Dan says, dropping down into the chair next to her. "This is your chance to go get him."
"I've lost interest." She kicks her feet out in front of her, frowning at her shoes. "It would never work out between us anyway."
"Why is that?"
"I don't actually have a good reason." She glances at him and smiles a bit. "Too young for me?"
"Just means he needs you to break him in." He wiggles his eyebrows meaningfully.
"Hmm. That's a little more tempting, but I'm pretty comfortable over here." She swings her feet some more, looking back at the crowd. "How come you aren't out there schmoozing?"
"It's a party. No fun dragging work into a party." He settles more comfortably into the chair. "You okay?"
"Yeah. I'm okay." She reaches over and catches his hand, threading their fingers together. "Thanks for getting me to come out here for this."
"You needed to be here," he says, looking at her with serious eyes. "It wouldn't be right without you."
She bites her lip and looks down at the floor, letting her hair fall over her face for a minute. "Thanks."
"Are you sure you're okay?"
She shrugs, watching the heels of her shoes dig at the floor. "I'm fine. Everything's great. My job is really good and I should be getting a promotion any time now. My boss thinks I'm wonderful. My cat...well. My cat doesn't hate me."
"I feel like there's a 'but' coming on." He shifts closer, nudging her shoulder with his. "Nat?"
She draws a breath, shakier than she'd like, and lets it go. "I miss you guys," she says, her voice low, her cheeks hot. "I know it's been two years and it's over and done with and let it go, but I still miss you guys, I miss feeling like work was a family, I miss...having that."
"Natalie." He shifts again, this time slipping his arm around her waist, tugging her closer. "We all miss it."
"I know it's not going to happen everywhere. I know I need to get over it."
He shakes his head, close enough that she feels his breath warm on her skin. "It's okay to be sad. And take it from me, okay? It took me a hell of a lot of therapy to be able to say that, and you don't want to deal with it."
She laughs a little, letting her head rest against his shoulder. "I'm not lonely, or anything. I have friends. Just...the holidays. Everybody's busy and I confuse my family and I think my cat might actually hate me after all."
"It's hard to tell with cats," he agrees.
She closes her eyes and they sit quietly for a few minutes, leaning on each other and slowly matching their breath, lulled half to sleep by the heavy heat of the room. Finally she sits up, rubbing the back of her hand across her eyes.
"I got you something," she says, reaching for the shopping bag that she dragged over here with her when she left the table. "Actually, you have to pick one, and Casey gets the other one. Your choice of scarves."
"Ah." He studies them for a minute. "I'll take the black one."
"Great." She stuffs the red one back in the bag and smiles at him. "Enjoy."
"I will," he says, carefully folding it into quarters. "Thank you."
She watches him for a moment and her eyes widen. "Wait. Give it back."
"De-gifting is beneath you, Natalie," he says, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, but he hands it over.
"You can have it at Christmas," she says with satisfaction.
He settles back in his seat, studying her face. "What happens at Christmas?"
"A lot of drinking and family fights, generally, but you're going to fly out to Chicago."
"I am?"
"You are." She holds up a hand to stop the objections that don't actually appear to be forthcoming. "We're doing our family Christmas a week early, because my brother is giving my parents a trip to Bermuda for the holiday. Also, you're Jewish."
"The last time I checked," he says, the smile escaping its confinement and stretching to full growth. "So I should come to visit you?"
"You're going to come visit me. No ifs, ands, or buts."
"And get a scarf for a holiday I don't celebrate."
"It's the thought that counts, Dan."
"Yeah, Nat," he says, leaning in and pressing a kiss to her cheek. "That's what they say."
**
On Christmas day, they watch Die Hard, Star Wars, and Rocky, after a best-of-seven coin-toss showdown, repeated with three different coins after accusations of cheating. They order in Chinese, and at Dan's insistence run down to the store for a six-pack instead of another bottle of questionable wine. Dan and the cat eye each other warily from opposite ends of the couch until Natalie sits down between them, a human Maginot Line.
Dan has the scarf wrapped loosely around his neck, and has been polite enough not to comment on Natalie's sweater. It seemed important to wear the thing today, symbolic somehow, even if she has finally concluded that it's not trendy, just ugly, and it will quickly be making its way to the neglected back corners of the closet.
"Hey," Dan says, nudging her leg, "you're not paying attention."
"I've seen it," she says, giving him a quick smile. "The Death Star blows up. The Millennium Falcon appears. Then...Ewoks? It's all very exciting."
"It's the other way around," he says, his eyes wounded. "Falcon first, then blowing up. And the Ewoks are in a whole different, far inferior movie. Natalie. Come on."
"Oh, I'm so sorry." She draws her knees up onto the couch. "Should I take notes?"
"Eh, I'll give you a bye." He watches the screen for a moment and then glances at her again. "Hey, did you get Dana's e-mail about how we should make the Heisman dinner a yearly thing?"
"Technically it already is a yearly thing."
"Wow, you're just in a mood today." He points the remote at her. "Is that your holiday spirit?"
"Okay, okay," she laughs. "Yes, I got the e-mail, and yes, I think it's a good idea." She smiles at him and brushes her hair back. "Of course, I'll still have to sponge a ticket off somebody else. To the dinner, I mean, I'll cover my own airfare from here on out."
"I'm sure that can be arranged." He sets the remote down on the coffee table and turns to face her better. "Natalie?"
"Yeah?"
"What would you do if I kissed you right now?"
"Is this a hypothetical or something that's likely to actually happen?"
His brow furrows slightly. "I'm not sure the two are necessarily mutually exclusive."
"Danny, are we really going to get into a discussion of semantics right now?
He grins, shrugging. "Well, with the two of us it's not as unlikely as you might think..."
"Good point," she says. "Better take care of that." She reaches out and catches her fingers in the scarf, tugging him over into a kiss.
She doesn't let go when they break apart, slowly rubbing her thumb across his throat while he blinks at her slow and dazed. "Holiday spirit," she says, smiling. "You're still not off the hook for not bringing me a present, though."
"I have ways of making up for that."
"So I've heard," she says, and kisses him again.
He runs his fingers along the hem of her sweater, brushing her skin where it's ridden up in the back. "Are we going to have to have a long, awkward discussion about how the important thing is the friendship and we don't want to mess that up?"
"If you even try it," she says, moving to straddle his lap, "I'll dump the fried rice over your head."
"Thank God," he mutters, and tugs the sweater up and off. "Or, well, God, John Heisman, and Jason White."
For Alex Jane. Always nice to find someone else who enjoys this pairing. :)
Set around the end of the 2003 college football season.
Natalie spends Thanksgiving at her apartment, with Chinese food and cheap wine and a season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. It's the season with the evil government agents, which is not her favorite and not the show's best work, but it's better than driving home from Chicago and spending a few days being creatively redefined as inadequate.
She calls her parents at noon and talks to everyone at the family gathering, pitching her voice up to sound cheerful and chipper, and opens the bottle of wine at one-thirty after throwing a pillow on top of her cell phone that stubbornly refuses to ring. Her team isn't working today, but she told every producer on the floor to feel free to call her in if they needed an extra pair of hands.
"That's how you get ahead," she tells her cat, who licks his tail and ignores her completely. "By being willing to go the extra mile. Being dedicated. Going after it." She takes a sip of her wine and wonders if drinking from the bottle is still tacky if there's no one around to see you but an overweight tabby. "But that doesn't work if they don't take you up on it."
Four hours later, her head is swimming with vampires, the wine bottle is empty, and the cat is industriously cleaning up the cold rice and sauce she spilled on the couch. The phone is still under the pillow, because while she may be drunk, she is not a fool, and drunk-dialing is absolutely the refuge of fools.
Drunken e-mailing, on the other hand, has not yet been categorized. She'll worry about that later. Whenever the replies come in, most likely.
**
The next morning, sure enough, she has confirmation that "foolish" is indeed the correct category.
Item one is a notice informing her that she's been banned from commenting on Jeremy's sports blog. (Not exactly a big loss, since she'd never commented before last night, just yelled at her laptop and sometimes sent sarcastic e-mails to Dana.)
Item two is a very polite and very confused reply from Casey, who has no idea how anything Larry Fitzgerald has done is his fault, but is sorry regardless, as he really doesn't want her to try to explain it. (She's pretty sure she remembers him advocating for Fitzgerald at least once on his new show, which doesn't necessarily make Fitzgerald his fault, but he's definitely tainted by association.)
Items three through five are nearly identical messages from Dana, Kim, and Elliot containing links to home hangover remedies. (Ha ha, very funny. She has hot tea and Ibuprofen and she'll be just fine, thanks.)
Item six is from Isaac, demanding to know how he got on this mailing list anyway. (It's the "CSC Embittered Expatriates" mailing list, Isaac, how do you think?)
And item seven is from Dan.
The littlest Manning makes for a good story and you would produce one hell of a package on it, Nat, but it's over and done with. Jason White's going to walk away with it and then lead Oklahoma to a national championship. Watch and see.
She sips her tea and studies the screen for a moment, not sure if she should just let it lie, let her embarrassment fade into old-mail folders and the wine stain on her couch. Exercise a little self-control, Natalie, it's for the best.
**
Her self-control lasts for an hour and a half, finally crumbling in the middle of a department store, where she has gone less because she enjoys shopping in the crazed Black Friday crowds and more because she can't take the accusing stares of her cat and the package proposal that has to be finished by Monday. Eli Manning is sitting there in the back of her brain, looking sad and disappointed, football in hand, wanting to know why he can't have a Heisman Trophy and a slickly-produced one-minute spot on why he's so much better than his brother. She drops a cashmere scarf that she doesn't even like into someone else's basket, digs her cell phone out of her pocket, and texts Dan.
jason white is boring!
She stares down at the screen and taps her foot, waiting for an answer, ignoring the swirl of people trying to get around her and their increasingly vocal suggestions that she move over by the shoe racks.
The phone finally chirps. That's not actually relevant to football.
She glares at the screen for a minute and then hits the dial button. "It's relevant to me," she snaps as soon as he picks up. "It's hard to make boring people into good TV."
"That's why they pay you the big bucks." Dan's voice is slightly amused and completely unruffled, and it takes the indignation right out of her for a minute.
Only for a minute, though. "He's completely bland! There's no drama."
"The two years of torn ligaments and surgeries don't count as drama? I think every other producer out there would beg to differ, Nat."
She's missed this more than she thought. "Don't you feel bad for Eli?"
"I imagine the pro contract he's going to have will ease the pain."
She frowns down at the hideous collection of candy-colored sweaters on the table beside her. "I imagine Peyton is going to pin him down and give him noogies."
"Well, yeah, that too." Dan laughs softly, the sound wavering as he shifts the phone from ear to ear. "Maybe you can console him personally at the dinner."
She runs her finger along the collar of a particularly ugly yellow thing. "At the what now?"
"The Heisman dinner."
She shrugs as if he can see her. "I'm not going."
"Of course you are. We all are."
"You guys all are. I can't." Maybe she should buy the yellow thing. It's probably very trendy. So what if it's unbelievably ugly?
"Natalie, we've been discussing this on the mailing list for weeks."
"I am aware of that."
She can picture him in the long seconds of silence before he replies, can imagine him closing his eyes, mustering his patience. She smiles faintly down at the sweater that she yes, absolutely, is going to buy. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"You're all so enthusiastic about having the CSC reunion table '03. It seemed rude to mess with your fun."
"That isn't being rude, that's passing on necessary information. It isn't exactly a reunion without you." There's another pause and she imagines him fidgeting in his chair, frowning at his phone. "Why can't you come?"
"We're not sending anyone. Getting the coverage from the national team." She folds the sweater over her arm. "Anyway. I should get going. I'm out shopping, I just wanted to..."
"You called me from shopping on Black Friday to tell me that Jason White is boring?"
"Well, I was thinking about you, Danny." Someone put the scarf she was looking at before back on the rack. She grabs it again and folds it up with the sweater. There must be someone she can give that to for Christmas.
"You think about me, you think about boring quarterbacks? Natalie...this is ridiculous."
"What is? The fact that you're not a quarterback? My guess is that it has something to do with you not being a football player." Maybe she should get two scarves. They have them in red and black.
"No, not that."
"And that you're kind of uncoordinated."
"I meant the fact that you're not coming to New York."
The scarves are stupendously ugly as well. She should put all of this back. "Yeah, well, that's life, Dan."
"Take the days off work."
"Excuse me?"
"Get those days off work and start packing. You're going to be my date."
She stops halfway back to the sweater table and blindly grabs a metallic blue jacket off its hanger. "Danny, I really don't have time to play games right now."
"I'm not playing. I'm flying you out to New York for that weekend. Buy yourself something pretty to wear."
"Buy myself something pretty? What are you, a gangster? Or my sugar daddy?"
"The plane ticket says yes, the fact that I'm not paying for the dress says no."
"Dan..."
"Please, Natalie?" His voice softens. "It won't be the same without you. I want you there. We all want you there."
She puts the jacket back on its hanger and hugs the sweater to her chest. "You don't have to pay for the ticket."
"I've already got the booking open on my computer."
"Don't do that, I have to see if I can get the time off."
"You must have vacation days. Or sick days."
She should get those scarves after all. "The Heisman dinner doesn't count as a sick day."
"Aren't you homesick?"
"New York isn't my home." Two red scarves and a black one. She'll figure out who to give them to later. She has to get out of this store.
"Natalie." It's his patient voice, his dealing-with-the-crazies voice, and it used to infuriate her, but right now she finds herself stopping again in the middle of the aisle, her arms full of overpriced knit goods and her eyes inexplicably full of tears. "Aren't you homesick?"
She exhales slowly and blinks hard against the lights. "Okay."
**
It's odd to see the names she's used to framing as mythic heroes, Achilles and Hector reincarnated in pads and Spandex, revealed up close and personal to be very young men in expensive suits that they wear without any grace or ease. The press lines are done with them for now, and they're gathered around the trophy, a huddle of muscles and wide eyes and gentle, anxious bullshitting. They're like puppies. God, it makes her feel old.
She jolts forward as a body hits hers from behind, the arms wrapping around her chest and shoulders the only thing stopping her from falling. "Natalie!" a voice squeals in her ear, and she realizes it's Dana, of course it's Dana, who else would tackle her from behind in the middle of the Yale Club?
"You look amazing!" Dana bubbles, hugging her again once she's steady on her feet again and turned around to face her. "Look at you. Wow. Chicago has been good to you."
"You look great too. Your hair!" She doesn't mean her hair at all, though it is very nice; Dana looks happy, content, fulfilled. Dana looks like she's found a place in the world where she's challenged and valued and driven crazy in a good way, at work and at home, and Natalie's glad to find that here in person she doesn't feel the hot twist of jealousy that always hit her when she heard about Dana's life over the computer or the phone.
Dana touches Natalie's face and smiles. "I've missed you."
"Dana, we talk almost every day..." Dana frowns and shakes her head slightly, her eyes sharp and meaningful--you know, Natalie, they say, you know-- and Natalie bites her lip and nods. "I missed you too." She reaches for the bag she shoved under the table when she arrived. "I brought you a scarf."
Dana winds the length of red cashmere around her hands, laughs, and hugs Natalie again. Natalie closes her eyes tight and lets the low drone-to-a-roar of the crowd fill her ears and empty her mind, taking a moment to just feel home again.
"I feel like we should mark the occasion," comes a voice from behind her, Dan's voice, and she steps back and wipes the back of her hand across her eyes. Dan and Casey walk up to the table comfortably in stride, perfectly matched in dark suits, neatly distinguished by bright ties. "Casey, you must know a speech or something other than St. Crispin's."
"Give me another hour and a few more glasses." Casey stumbles as Dan abruptly stops walking. "Danny, watch where you're..."
"Oh, I'm watching, Case," Dan said, a broad grin spreading slowly across his face. "Now show a little respect to the ladies."
"I don't see any ladies," Casey says, deadpan. "Just Dana and Natalie."
"You always were a philistine, Casey." Dan reaches out and takes Natalie's hand, kissing the back of her fingers in an elaborately courtly gesture that makes her laugh despite herself. "Miss Hurley, when it comes to buying something pretty, you follow directions well."
"You're a dork, Dan," she says, tugging her hand free and smiling at him. "And let's rephrase that to a suggestion, not a direction, before I have to smack you in the middle of this classy establishment."
"Eh, it's over the top," Casey says, looking around the room.
"Ignore him," Dan says. "He has Ivy envy."
"I do not."
"You do. Stop it." Dan's eyes haven't left Natalie, and his smile hasn't faltered. "You really do look great, Natalie."
"Thanks." She smooths the front of her dress and carefully ignores the look Dana is giving her. Turnabout may be fair play, but she can deny it as long as humanly possible. "So. What now?"
"Now, we dine." Dan nods to where the master of ceremonies is approaching the podium, and waiters are peering out from the kitchen entry. "We drink, we watch several young men have one of their dreams crushed, and then there is the option of dancing."
"And then I get to hug Eli Manning?" Natalie sits down and straightens her skirt, grinning at Dan across the glassware. "You promised I could console him."
"If you can get to him, you can hug him, and then I promise to get in security's way while you make the hundred-yard dash to the door."
"He's a big, bad, football-playing boy, he doesn't need security."
"He's kind of used to having the offensive line, at least," Casey says absently, draining his glass. "Dana, why do you keep hitting me?"
"I'm not hitting you," Dana says, narrowing her eyes at Natalie.
"Yes, you are, a lot, in the ribs, and it hurts."
"She's trying to get your opinion on something," Natalie says with exaggerated sweetness, pausing to take a sip of her own champagne, "discreetly, but she's not very good at that. And anyway, there's nothing to get an opinion on, it doesn't exist."
"What is she talking about?" Casey asks Dan, raising his eyebrows helplessly.
"It's women-code, don't worry about it," Dan shrugs.
Dana points across the table at Natalie. "I don't miss you at all anymore. I revoke that I ever missed you. Secret-keeper."
"No secrets, Dana," Natalie says, her eyes wide with all the innocence she can muster. "And don't make me take that scarf away from you."
"You'll get that scarf out of my cold, dead hands, missy."
"Ladies and gentlemen," comes the MC's voice over the polite, discreet, eminently classy Yale Club sound system, shutting them up by default, "good evening and welcome."
**
Dan's idea of an option of dancing was somewhat overstated. After the ceremony, it's mostly milling and drinking and bullshitting, which somehow makes the room feel crowded even though it's emptied by a third as the people here to provide actual coverage vanish.
Natalie ends up tucked away in a corner, sipping seltzer because she's had too much champagne to mingle and network. Not that she feels inspired to do that anyway; tonight feels strange, dissociated, dreamlike. It's not normal for her and she knows it; she should be out there making contacts, not leaning her head against the wall and watching the way the light plays across wood and glass and silk.
"Young Mr. Manning is currently unguarded," Dan says, dropping down into the chair next to her. "This is your chance to go get him."
"I've lost interest." She kicks her feet out in front of her, frowning at her shoes. "It would never work out between us anyway."
"Why is that?"
"I don't actually have a good reason." She glances at him and smiles a bit. "Too young for me?"
"Just means he needs you to break him in." He wiggles his eyebrows meaningfully.
"Hmm. That's a little more tempting, but I'm pretty comfortable over here." She swings her feet some more, looking back at the crowd. "How come you aren't out there schmoozing?"
"It's a party. No fun dragging work into a party." He settles more comfortably into the chair. "You okay?"
"Yeah. I'm okay." She reaches over and catches his hand, threading their fingers together. "Thanks for getting me to come out here for this."
"You needed to be here," he says, looking at her with serious eyes. "It wouldn't be right without you."
She bites her lip and looks down at the floor, letting her hair fall over her face for a minute. "Thanks."
"Are you sure you're okay?"
She shrugs, watching the heels of her shoes dig at the floor. "I'm fine. Everything's great. My job is really good and I should be getting a promotion any time now. My boss thinks I'm wonderful. My cat...well. My cat doesn't hate me."
"I feel like there's a 'but' coming on." He shifts closer, nudging her shoulder with his. "Nat?"
She draws a breath, shakier than she'd like, and lets it go. "I miss you guys," she says, her voice low, her cheeks hot. "I know it's been two years and it's over and done with and let it go, but I still miss you guys, I miss feeling like work was a family, I miss...having that."
"Natalie." He shifts again, this time slipping his arm around her waist, tugging her closer. "We all miss it."
"I know it's not going to happen everywhere. I know I need to get over it."
He shakes his head, close enough that she feels his breath warm on her skin. "It's okay to be sad. And take it from me, okay? It took me a hell of a lot of therapy to be able to say that, and you don't want to deal with it."
She laughs a little, letting her head rest against his shoulder. "I'm not lonely, or anything. I have friends. Just...the holidays. Everybody's busy and I confuse my family and I think my cat might actually hate me after all."
"It's hard to tell with cats," he agrees.
She closes her eyes and they sit quietly for a few minutes, leaning on each other and slowly matching their breath, lulled half to sleep by the heavy heat of the room. Finally she sits up, rubbing the back of her hand across her eyes.
"I got you something," she says, reaching for the shopping bag that she dragged over here with her when she left the table. "Actually, you have to pick one, and Casey gets the other one. Your choice of scarves."
"Ah." He studies them for a minute. "I'll take the black one."
"Great." She stuffs the red one back in the bag and smiles at him. "Enjoy."
"I will," he says, carefully folding it into quarters. "Thank you."
She watches him for a moment and her eyes widen. "Wait. Give it back."
"De-gifting is beneath you, Natalie," he says, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, but he hands it over.
"You can have it at Christmas," she says with satisfaction.
He settles back in his seat, studying her face. "What happens at Christmas?"
"A lot of drinking and family fights, generally, but you're going to fly out to Chicago."
"I am?"
"You are." She holds up a hand to stop the objections that don't actually appear to be forthcoming. "We're doing our family Christmas a week early, because my brother is giving my parents a trip to Bermuda for the holiday. Also, you're Jewish."
"The last time I checked," he says, the smile escaping its confinement and stretching to full growth. "So I should come to visit you?"
"You're going to come visit me. No ifs, ands, or buts."
"And get a scarf for a holiday I don't celebrate."
"It's the thought that counts, Dan."
"Yeah, Nat," he says, leaning in and pressing a kiss to her cheek. "That's what they say."
**
On Christmas day, they watch Die Hard, Star Wars, and Rocky, after a best-of-seven coin-toss showdown, repeated with three different coins after accusations of cheating. They order in Chinese, and at Dan's insistence run down to the store for a six-pack instead of another bottle of questionable wine. Dan and the cat eye each other warily from opposite ends of the couch until Natalie sits down between them, a human Maginot Line.
Dan has the scarf wrapped loosely around his neck, and has been polite enough not to comment on Natalie's sweater. It seemed important to wear the thing today, symbolic somehow, even if she has finally concluded that it's not trendy, just ugly, and it will quickly be making its way to the neglected back corners of the closet.
"Hey," Dan says, nudging her leg, "you're not paying attention."
"I've seen it," she says, giving him a quick smile. "The Death Star blows up. The Millennium Falcon appears. Then...Ewoks? It's all very exciting."
"It's the other way around," he says, his eyes wounded. "Falcon first, then blowing up. And the Ewoks are in a whole different, far inferior movie. Natalie. Come on."
"Oh, I'm so sorry." She draws her knees up onto the couch. "Should I take notes?"
"Eh, I'll give you a bye." He watches the screen for a moment and then glances at her again. "Hey, did you get Dana's e-mail about how we should make the Heisman dinner a yearly thing?"
"Technically it already is a yearly thing."
"Wow, you're just in a mood today." He points the remote at her. "Is that your holiday spirit?"
"Okay, okay," she laughs. "Yes, I got the e-mail, and yes, I think it's a good idea." She smiles at him and brushes her hair back. "Of course, I'll still have to sponge a ticket off somebody else. To the dinner, I mean, I'll cover my own airfare from here on out."
"I'm sure that can be arranged." He sets the remote down on the coffee table and turns to face her better. "Natalie?"
"Yeah?"
"What would you do if I kissed you right now?"
"Is this a hypothetical or something that's likely to actually happen?"
His brow furrows slightly. "I'm not sure the two are necessarily mutually exclusive."
"Danny, are we really going to get into a discussion of semantics right now?
He grins, shrugging. "Well, with the two of us it's not as unlikely as you might think..."
"Good point," she says. "Better take care of that." She reaches out and catches her fingers in the scarf, tugging him over into a kiss.
She doesn't let go when they break apart, slowly rubbing her thumb across his throat while he blinks at her slow and dazed. "Holiday spirit," she says, smiling. "You're still not off the hook for not bringing me a present, though."
"I have ways of making up for that."
"So I've heard," she says, and kisses him again.
He runs his fingers along the hem of her sweater, brushing her skin where it's ridden up in the back. "Are we going to have to have a long, awkward discussion about how the important thing is the friendship and we don't want to mess that up?"
"If you even try it," she says, moving to straddle his lap, "I'll dump the fried rice over your head."
"Thank God," he mutters, and tugs the sweater up and off. "Or, well, God, John Heisman, and Jason White."