Chapter 3: "Promotion"

Though Rebecca had been able to secure a temporary training facility near Nelson Road, Roy had been taking the team on "field trips," as Ted used to call them. Today, the Greyhounds were practicing on the pitch near Richmond Primary School. It had rained the night before, giving the sky the color of council housing concrete and the ground a slick, muddy surface. He wanted his team to get good and dirty during training. Roy was starting to fear that all the money pouring into the club was making the team soft like a bag of rotten bananas. Thankfully, the steady drizzle was keeping the new "owners" away from training this morning. Roy still thought the idea of the fans owning stock in the team was a bit mad, but he had to admit, it was working. As Beard stood on his left and Nate on his right, Roy couldn't help but smile at how foul the world seemed this morning. Nothing made him happier.

Then Roy saw someone walking down the pitch towards them. Short guy, long coat, and—as loath as Roy was to admit it—one of the most luxurious manes of salt-and-pepper hair to ever flow from a man's head. Roy grunted as Beard and Nate turned to look at Trent Crimm.

"Whistle!" Roy yelled loudly. "Get yer arses over here now!"

The team stopped drilling and ran over to line up in front of Roy and the coaching staff.

"That's it, line up, boys." Roy turned to his assistant coaches. "Divvy 'em up and scrimmage for a bit. Let me go see what this guy wants."

"Coach, these guys are too clean. Let's run them over to the next pitch," Beard said. "It's a lot muddier."

Roy smiled. "I always like the way you think, Coach. Have a ball, you two."

Beard and Nate took the team, divided them into two squads, and ran them over to the next pitch.

Roy did his best to look intimidating. He didn't think he needed to go full Arnold-in-Terminator, so he just did his Opening-Credits-to-Reservoir-Dogs walk. It would have looked better if he were wearing all black instead of his blue coaching gear, but Rebecca was still adamant about keeping the traditional team colors.

Trent smiled nice and big for Roy, it seemed. He said, "Hello, Coach Kent. It took a while to find you. You weren't at the indoor facility for training, so I figured I'd start looking for you and the team in more unorthodox places."

Roy scowled and said in his harsh voice, "You know, you're holding me up right now. I really don't have time for this, you and your… book."

"It's going into its second printing."

"If this is about me writing a longer intro for your bloody second edition, you can right well sod off now. Like I said before, if it's long enough for Twitter, it's long enough for your—"

Trent waved off Roy, stopping him mid-sentence to say, "No, no. That's not what I'm here about. I'm actually leaving next week for my American book tour, and I wanted to follow up with you."

Roy folded his arms.

Trent asked, "So how's the team doing?"

"You see the standings. You already know the answer to that."

Trent nodded. "Bottom of the Champions League, started with a few losses, then made some major wins. You beat Liverpool, tied Real Madrid—"

Roy grunted and said, "Yeah, that's right, and we've tied every game since."

"Your last five?"

"Four."

"That's respectable, considering this is Richmond's first season in the Champions League."

"Don't give me that shit, Trent."

"Pardon?"

"I know what you're thinking."

"Thinking?"

"Yeah. That if Lasso were still here, we'd be doing better."

"Honestly, Roy, the thought didn't even cross my mind."

"You sure about that? Because at every bloody presser, I get asked about that Ronald McDonald mustachioed asshole at least once."

Trent raised his eyebrow. "I've seen some of your pressers. The questions you're being asked seem fair, but no one seems to have it out for you or Richmond. Quite the contrary, many of my former colleagues seem to almost be rooting for you to not face relegation by the end of the season."

"No one thinks we can win it all though."

Trent nodded. "I see."

Roy grunted. "The shit part is that if Lasso were here, he'd be thinking we could do that." He looked down at the ground as the drizzle started to become a harder rain and said, "The wanker didn't like ties."

Trent said, "No one thinks you're doing a bad job."

"Fuck off!"

Trent walked backwards a few paces, his eyes on Roy. "We'll talk more when I get back, Roy. And just so you know, I miss Ted, too."

An hour later, Trent walked into Rebecca's office. As usual, she had her nose buried in spreadsheets on her laptop, with only the occasional glance at tabloid websites. He said, "Hello, Rebecca."

She smiled, closed the laptop, and stood up. "Trent, good to see you."

Trent couldn't help but look up. She was a head taller than he was, even when not in heels, but of course she was wearing them today. "Busy?" he asked.

"Never too busy for you, Trent. Have a seat."

Trent pointed toward window as they both sat back down and said, "Just following up on how things are going before I fly off to New York next week. I see the construction is going well."

"It is," Rebecca said, smiling. "Still doing the book tour?"

"I'm getting a second printing. My agent suggested doing a few interviews in America. Breakfast television in some major markets, primarily near cities that have MLS teams."

"That sounds lovely. Looking forward to it?"

"I am. My agent also said that with some edits, I could market The Richmond Way as a self-help book for business managers in the American market."

"So by edits, I assume you mean fewer words and more bullet points with pithy aphorisms."

Trent smiled. "Yes, Americans love their pithy aphorisms, especially the ones that exude positivity." Trent then eyed the pink box on Rebecca's desk. "Biscuits?"

"Yes. Want one?"

"Thank you." He took one out of the full box and bit into it. "You know, these taste familiar."

Rebecca nodded. "They're from Ted's recipe. I have the local bakery make them every morning. Not quite the same though."

"I agree."

After a pause, Rebecca asked, "Is there anything particular you wanted to ask about the team?"

"Well, a lot of what I wanted to ask you about has more to do with color commentary than anything. For instance, Richmond's last four matches have ended in ties. How do you feel about that?"

Rebecca exhaled and said, "As owner of the club, I'm not exactly thrilled with our current situation. By the end of the season, we'll probably end up at the bottom of the rankings. Even so, I have confidence in Coach Kent's ability to build upon the success we've achieved in the last three years."

"Funny you mention Coach Kent. I just got back from talking with him myself."

"Oh, and?"

"And he seems… agitated? Frustrated?"

"That's just Roy being Roy."

"Well, you mentioned the last three years just now. Something I get asked in every interview is how the team is faring without its principal architect. They want to know about Ted."

"I see."

"And Roy seems to think he's living under the very long shadow Ted Lasso has cast."

Rebecca sat quietly for a moment, giving thought to her answer. Then she said, "I can't say enough good things about Ted. In fact, wherever he is, I hope he's doing well. But even he would say that it was less about him and more about empowering each of us."
Trent gave a wry smile and said, "I don't think that exactly answers the question."

"Could we be doing better? Probably, I don't know. I do know Richmond's new status as football's latest Cinderella story has reinvigorated the club. We aren't a joke anymore. And Ted had to leave, for his family's—I mean, his son's sake. So how we're doing without Ted is purely an academic point."

Rebecca's face was solid, stiff upper lip, a mask that she put on for the media. Trent had seen that mask many times on many different people when he was a journalist. "Purely academic, you say?"

Then Rebecca's eyes began to soften. "You know what's shitty?"

Trent shook his head, trying to hide his shock at her sudden change in tone.

"He's gone. Not gone home to Kansas. Not gone home to his son. Just gone."

"I noticed that, too."

"It's like after that trip we took to Amsterdam last season, he withdrew more and more, spoke less and less. When I first met Ted, I could barely ever get him to shut his mouth. By the time he left, it was like a part of him was already gone anyway. I knew it had to do with going home to his family, but I can't help feeling like… like…"

"Like?"

"Like he was just done with us." She paused and then continued, "Done with me."

"So, you haven't heard from him either?"

"Not in months." Rebecca looked away from Trent, out the window at the grey sky and the rainy weather as it threw a pall over the newly renovated stadium. "Sometimes I feel like… I don't know, like maybe we were just another thing he needed to fix, that once he saw his work was done, he just had to ride off like a bloody cowboy into the sunset. He spoke about how happy he was to go home to his boy, and I know deep down inside he was, but at the time, in the airport when we said goodbye, I thought I saw that he was sad, too. I remember how at the end of his first season at Richmond, when we'd gotten relegated, how he'd said that we were fortunate. Fortunate because we had each other. Because the only thing worse than being sad, was being sad and alone. And there I was letting him get on a plane to go back to Kansas to be sad and alone when he was leaving us better than we were when he found us. But when he stopped emailing, stopped all communication actually, I had to wonder if we ever meant that much to him. Stupid, right?"

Trent shook his head. "No, not at all. I admit to wondering the same thing."

"I feel awful because I let him go, and I feel awful because he left so easily." She started to cry, taking some tissues from a box on her desk. "How much fucking sense does that make?"

Trent said, "It might be that he isn't sad or alone at all. He has his son."

"I don't think I've ever told anyone," Rebecca said, "but I offered him a raise to stay. Even offered to help him move his son and that—well, his ex-wife—here to the UK. He said no."

"Just flat out, 'No?'"

Rebecca nodded. "He didn't even want to ask them, probably didn't want to upend their lives."

"Ted being Ted."

"Exactly. Even though he turned me down, I'd thought we'd at least stay in touch. Maybe one Christmas, I'd send season passes for Henry and Ted with first-class plane tickets. But no. Ted was gone, like some kind of American Mary Poppins."

Trent said, "I worry about him."

"You do?"

"I do."

"Why?"

"Call it a journalist's instinct. Just as you've said, I also noticed how withdrawn Ted seemed before he left. He said he was happy, but even I had to wonder."

It was then that Trent became aware of how heavy the conversation had gotten. They both sat in silence, looking out the window. November in England was never the most inviting month, but even the weather outside reflected the inner dispositions of Trent and Rebecca. At four in the afternoon, the gloom outside made the world dark, almost inky, like a black mass weighing down both their thoughts.

Then Rebecca broke the silence. "What do you propose we do about this?"

"We should do something," Trent said. "He is our friend."

"You know, he always used to go on and on about those barbeque places in Kansas."

"Yes, he did. I've always wondered what it would be like to eat excessive portions of charbroiled meat slathered in sauce without utensils."

"And you just happen to be going to America."

"I am, but if my memory of American geography serves me correctly, none of my stops will be anywhere near Kansas."

Rebecca raised her eyebrows. "Oh, really now? Do me a favor, and have your agent call me. I'll help her arrange for you to take a slight detour. I think it's time we pay a visit to our Mr. Lasso and see how he's doing."

"You mean drop in unexpectedly?"

"Don't tell me you don't think he wouldn't do the same for us if our positions were reversed?"

"That's Ted being Ted."