The football stands that are home to the Lodi University Bulls had -- a tribute to the team's success -- been newly painted. Caydance looked across the field to where Coach Lozano was talking to his quarterback. The weather had turned cool, and she was wearing a designer label silver down jacket and tight sky-blue jeans. Normally, she would not have donned sunglasses and pulled her hair into a baseball cap, but she was not planning to reveal who she was unless Huygens won the game. Enough time had passed -- since the year when false gaiety concealed Edelira's inconsolable sadness over the disappearance of Gabe Lozano from her life -- that Caydance might have felt she should forget that year and be happy to see him in a coaching role. But that was before Lozano insulted her husband during the game film exchange at Dream Fluff Donuts in Berkeley.

She had expected Griff to return from Berkeley in the usual good mood that accompanied male bonding with an opposing coach. But that was not what happened after his meeting with Lozano. "He is not in as good shape as I am. I wanted to show him that", Griff growled, "but two coaches in a fist fight at the best donut shop in Northern California might have attracted police. It was one thing to make fun of how what happened to my knee had derailed my career. But threatening that his team would do the same to my quarterback is not proper behavior at a game film exchange."