Page 18 of Playing to Win
“No.”
“Why not?”
“She said all the singing in all the biggest places in the world wouldn’t mean anything if my dad wasn’t there with her. And she knew he wouldn’t be happy in the big city. So she stayed. For him.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow.”
They sat in silence for a while, Kyle soaking in Callie’s words and Callie lost in her memories as she drove.
“So, are your nana and pop still alive?” Kyle asked, breaking the silence.
“No. My pop died in a tractor accident when I was a senior in high school and my nana died from cancer last year. It’s just me and Daddy.”
“Curly, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to keep apologizing for things that had nothing to do with you,” she said with a soft laugh.
“I’m not saying sorry because I have done anything. I’m saying sorry because that’s a lot of loss for someone in such a short span of life,” he replied, gently running soothing circles on her neck with his fingers.
“Well, that’s the way things go. No use crying over things that can’t be changed. What about you? Where are you from?”
“You don’t know where I’m from?”
Callie knew exactly where he was from. Had watched him play for Duke when he was in college. However, there was no way she was letting him know she knew. And she definitely wasn’t letting him know as soon as he left her house after he helped her study, she stayed up even later than she should have going down a Kyle Kelly rabbit hole of information. At this point in time, she knew all his sisters’ names and his favorite flavor of ice cream.
“North Carolina.”
“Is that why you went to Duke?”
“My dad about killed me when I went to Duke. He graduated from UNC.”
“What made you choose Duke then?”
“Coach K. I just love what he stands for. He doesn’t take crap off of anybody, he makes his players act like good people, and he keeps them grounded. With being in the limelight so much, it’s really easy to get caught up in it all. Coach K really put it in perspective for us, made us realize that we weren’t invincible, that it all could be taken away from us with one twist of our ankle, one wrong bend of our knee. He told us we couldn’t just rely on our athleticism to get us places. We had to have a backup plan.”
“Coach K is a wise man.”
“That he is. So where we headed, Curly?”
“Come again?”
“Your dad’s place? You never told me where you were from. Norman? Edmond? North OKC?”
Callie laughed. “Hardly.”
“Well, where to, then?”
“Ever heard of Velma?”
“Um, should I?”
“Not unless you’ve been born and raised in Stephens County, Oklahoma. Or are a huge fan of Joe Diffie.”
Callie toldKyle that her hometown was small, but when she said small, he didn’t realize how small was small. He could probably run from one end of the town to the other and not even break a sweat. There wasn’t even a stoplight.
“I know it’s not much,” Callie said with a shrug as she pulled into her driveway. “But it’s home.”
