Page 73 of Playing Her Game

“I want the gossip because I'm a woman of the people.” She takes another sip.

I laugh again.

“There she is,” she says softly.

The warmth in her voice catches me off guard. I glance at her, and for a moment the teasing falls away. She isn't trying to pry something out of me. She's giving me an opening, letting me decide whether to take it.

I appreciate that more than I can say.

“I left Chicago,” I tell her. “That's all.”

“Physically, yes. I gathered that when I saw you board the plane.”

“Bernie.”

“Anna.”

I give her a look.

She raises both hands in surrender, champagne balanced precariously in one of them. “Fine. I'll behave. For at least thirty seconds.”

I consider telling her about my mother. About the phone call and the threats, about being told that I was throwing away my future because I'd spent six days with a man I wanted. But the words feel too heavy to bring into this small, comfortable space just yet.

Instead, I ask, “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Your family and the Bears. I know the connection, obviously, but I don't think I've ever heard the whole story from you.”

Something changes in her expression. Not quite surprise, but a flicker of recognition.

“The whole story,” she repeats.

“Only if you want to tell it.”

She rolls her champagne between her palms, watching the bubbles gather along the inside of the glass.

“My grandfather owned the Bears before Costello bought them,” she says. “The Callahan name was on the arena; now it’s the VIP lounge.”

I smile.

“But when you're growing up in that world, you don't think of it as a legacy. You think of it as where you're going after school, who you're seeing on weekends, whose birthday party you're attending, which games you have to sit through because your grandfather considers missing one a personal insult.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“Doesn't it? Everyone else sees the money, the history, the name on the building. You see your family. You see the people who were there before you were old enough to understand why any of it mattered.”

She takes a drink.

“I loved the Bears. I still do. I ran the foundation for years, and that was the part I cared about most. The work. The people we could help. The things we could make happen with the resources we had.”

“You stepped away, though.”

Her mouth tightens slightly. “I did.”

I wait as Bernie looks out at the wing, where the gray sky has begun to brighten.

“A few years ago, I had a very public breakup with one of the former players. It became a media nightmare. And I don't mean a few gossip columns running a story for a week. I mean my private life became a subject people felt entitled to discuss, dissect, and invent things about.”