What The Heart Wants

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Even though the players had the day off, Wendy, Erica, and the rest of the Hearts front office were at the training complex taking care of tasks in preparation for Monday's start to the regular season and Heart-to-Heart. Lauren first called the African-American Museum in Philly to confirm their having the entire building at their disposal for Monday night (the museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays), which included four galleries and an auditorium that will be used for the panel Q-and-A's following the individual player ones. Following that, she called Eric Berley at the Franklin Fountain to give him firm numbers on how many will be attending and thus a final order for the evening. She then called the club's new game-day operations director, Abby Ferguson, and Rudy Fuller, the athletic director at the University of Pennsylvania, to ask them to be part of Monday night's festivities, to which both agreed. Before moving onto the administrative part of her day, Lauren called Katie Naughton to get confirmation of her trade to Sky Blue and her willingness to participate as one of the "group leaders" at Heart-to-Heart. Katie told her that she would be flying into Philly on Monday afternoon, where she'd be met by Danny Colaprico at the airport and then travel to Jen, Frannie, and Nickolette's house.

Wendy was in her office taking in all the happenings around the league from the last few days and monitoring the league's website for any player movement. At 11:00, she received a push notification from the league's Twitter account that a press conference would be held at 2pm in Cary, North Carolina to address the Jaelene Hinkle matter, with general manager Cindy Parlow Cone presiding over it. Ten minutes later, the Washington Spirit's account sent out a Tweet stating that they had made a trade and the team's newest player would be introduced on Friday morning prior to the team's 10am practice. Lauren dropped in after finishing her phone calls and told Wendy about the impending Red Stars/Sky Blue deal and that all details for Monday night had been finished aside from assigning the players to specific protectors and their groups, which she said would be accomplished after she returned from M3 Printing and picked up lunch.

***

Following a lazy morning at their house, Steph and Ali went out for an afternoon of eating and shopping at the King of Prussia Mall. They lunched at True Food Kitchen before starting their search for the ultimate in outfits for Monday night.

Ali: Do you want my help in choosing something, or are you looking to find an outfit that's more to your general style?

Steph: Heart-to-Heart is going to be more laid-back and intimate than Hearts United was, and is supposed to be more interactive, so I'd rather not glam up too much.

Striking out first at Ann Taylor and then at Bloomingdale's, the pair went to Macy's where they both found dresses that played to their best traits and were true to who they were. Steph got a dark grey short-sleeve A-line dress while Ali opted for a sleeveless midi dress with ruffles in a lighter shade of grey. Before leaving the mall, Steph pulled Ali into Zales because she wanted to get her a little something to commemorate their first season together as partners as well as teammates. After a few minutes of browsing, she settled on the following: