Right Kind of Mistake

by Rebecca Thomas

  From the time I could remember any childhood memories, I knew if you gave me a box of crayons and some paper I was happy. Art was my drug of choice. But of course I couldn’t major in art. The idea of being an art major was appalling to everyone, most of all my parents. You can’t make money doing art. How many times had I heard that? A bachelor’s degree in art was basically worthless. I’d been told a thousand times. So I settled on art being my minor. My major was Creative Writing.

  My parents tried to convince me that Journalism would be a better use of my time, but I stayed firm on this. If I couldn’t be an Art major, I was going to be creative in my writing – to heck with them. University requirements insisted I have one class with a lab and this was it. I’d waited clear until my junior year to get it over with. Mr. Sheldon Cooper look-a-like wasn’t talkative or even the least bit helpful, either. He just passed the microscope back to me while he took notes.

  I should give him the benefit of doubt. Maybe he was just shy. “So do you have any plans this weekend?”

  He looked at me as if I’d grown a second head.

  “Plans?” He pushed his glasses up his nose.

  Was this guy only capable of speaking one word at a time? “Yeah, you know, are you going out? Going to the hockey game? Are you in any clubs that meet? You know…those kinds of plans?”

  “I’m in the honors program. My only plans are to study.”

  Well, of course. How silly of me to try to make casual conversation. He was more like Sheldon than I’d imagined. At least I gave our bonding a chance.

  I took down notes as he switched out the microscope slides. I noticed the hockey player two tables away. He was a new recruit, a freshman from Alberta, Canada. He was laughing with his buddy while they looked at slides. I should have snagged him as my partner. One thing I could say about hockey players – they knew how to have a good time. On the ice, in a bar, in a microbiology lab, it didn’t matter where they were, they always had fun.

  But none of that mattered. I was done with them.

  The rest of my school week was more of the same. I went to class and thought more about how I’d ruined things between Cam and I.

  By Friday, I was so happy to be alone in the art studio. The professor left the door unlocked for me as long as I promised to lock up when I left. A blank piece of canvas and oil colors filled the empty crevasses of my soul in a way I couldn’t explain. Creating art was something intangible that churned inside me and longed to be expressed. Whether with watercolors, oils, ceramics, metals…the only hard part was choosing which medium to use. Tonight, oils were my choice.

  I carried all my paint in a tackle box. The tubes fit perfectly into each channel that could also be used for fishing tackle. The smell of oils and turpentine wafted in the air after I unlatched the lid. Just the smell of the oil-based paint excited me.

  I had no idea what I wanted to create. I only knew I had to do it. My mood immediately went to blue. Thalo, Cobalt, and French Ultramarine were my go-to blues. I mixed them with opaque white on my palate and dipped my brush in the fusion of cool colors.

  I let my brush glide across the canvas in a series of long and short strokes. I blended the blues with the white to vary the shading. I immediately thought of water and figured that was what my mind was creating, a waterfall maybe, or a splash of ocean spray. But before long, despite my efforts to suppress what my inner child wanted, I knew what I was generating. I knew what my sub consciousness wanted to construct, so I quit fighting it.

  I wasn’t painting splashing water, I was painting spraying ice.

  Most people don’t think of ice and spraying in the same sentence, but I do. And what makes the ice scatter in miniscule shards of frosty ice?

  The blade of a hockey skate.

  I dipped back into my paints and removed the tube of Mars Black. I mixed it with white and painted the cool gray steel of a hockey blade. I let my hands and my mind drift completely into the right side of my brain and simply created.

  I took five steps back from the easel with my palate in hand and admired my work. The canvas couldn’t be described as anything other than beautiful. Emotions welled up in me and a tear slid down my cheek. It was by far one of my best pieces of work, especially for me to paint something with this much detail in the span of two hours. It was unbelievable, really.

  The hockey skate was angled with ice spewing off the blade. A puck and stick was subtly in the background along with a crowd of people.

  I heard footsteps from the hall and before I knew it the door of the studio flew open. Elle and Maya had been giggling. “There you are,” Elle said.

  “We figured this was where you were hiding out, since you didn’t answer your phone,” Maya said.

  “Oh sorry,” I said quickly, wiping the tear from my cheek. “I always turn it off when I paint.”

  “Oh my God!” Elle exclaimed. She stepped across the threshold of the studio and stared at my painting. “That is gorgeous.”

  Maya stood alongside her. “Haylie, you’ve outdone yourself. It’s eclectic and modern and amazing. You have about a million shades of blue spraying off the ice.”

  I tipped my chin up and suddenly felt the need to explain what it was. “It’s the spray of the ice when a hockey blade stops.”

  “I know. I can see that,” Maya continued. “It’s amazing. I’ll never look at a hockey skate or blades rather, on the ice in the same way again.”

  “You’ve got to have your own showing,” Elle chimed in. “I’ll do all the advertising for you. We’ll have finger foods and drinks. It’s going to be great. All the world needs to see your talent.”

  I held up my hands. “Wait a second. Don’t go planning my future for me. Remember, I’m just an art minor, because nobody can ever make money in the art business.”

  “I would buy your paintings,” Elle said.

  “Exactly. You could afford it, but the average consumer can’t.” I pointed my pencil-thin paintbrush at her. “This economy doesn’t allow for excess spending on art anymore.”

  “Oh, Haylie, but it’s so pretty. It’s more than pretty. It’s magnificent,” Elle said.

  I put my palate and brush down. “Thank you. So what did you guys want, now that you found me?”

  “You’re going to the game with us, right?” Maya asked. “We’ll take the seven o’clock shuttle to the rink. Come on. We haven’t got much time.”

  “I wasn’t thinking I would go tonight.” I started to clean my brushes.

  “What?” Elle cried. “You’ve never missed a hockey game.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Besides, you probably love it more than either Maya or I do. We just go for the guys, but you actually know something about the game.”

  I studied my painting as I cleaned my brushes and made sure all the lids were screwed securely on my paint tubes. Of course I would paint ice, of course I would paint a hockey skate, because my subconscious knew better than me where my thoughts were and how badly I wanted to attend the game even if I kept trying to tell myself otherwise.

  “You’re coming with us, aren’t you?” Maya asked incredulously.

  I washed my hands in the sink. I knew I couldn’t say no. “I’m coming, I’m coming. I can’t miss this game, especially against the Spartans. Are you crazy?” I grinned at my friends and they smiled back.

  Painting gave me the kind of release I needed, something to give my battered psyche some rest. I knew what I had to do. I had to make peace with Cam.

  I couldn’t leave things where they were between us. Somehow I had to make amends. I had to make him understand that we could be friends, but not more than friends. I had to make things right. Even if all we’d ever be were two people who said hello when we passed each other, then that is what I wanted. I didn’t want him thinking I thought our night together was a big mistake. I knew it wasn’t a mistake. I just said what I said to get rid of him and unfortunately, it worked!

  I packed up my paints and we headed for the arena. Being at th
e rink without Tyler was a new experience for me. Our team would have a harder time winning without Tyler in the line-up, but I believed we could still do it. He’d been recruited by the Bruins in December, right before finals. He gave up his NCAA eligibility, quit college, and he was gone. This was our first game without him.

  Elle, Maya, and I sat in the student section. I yelled and chanted and screamed just like I always had from the time I was only five years old.

  Growing up in a hockey family, I’d never known anything different. If I had been smart I would have chosen to attend college in Arizona or some other sunny locale, but instead I followed Tyler.

  My SAT test scores were high enough to get me into just about any school I wanted with full scholarships. What had I been thinking to travel to a place colder and darker and smaller than St. Cloud, Minnesota? I knew the answer to that, but I couldn’t keep looking back at my mistakes. I needed to look forward to the future and to graduating next year.

  I had always planned to go where ever Tyler went after graduation. Now the world had opened up to me. I could decide where I wanted to go, but the sad thing was I didn’t have a clue.

  “Since I readily admit I’m here for the guys, I’m ditching you girls for a bit,” Elle said, and left us.

  The ref made a terrible call against us. “Get a life, ref!” I yelled. “Better yet, get glasses,” I added for good measure, before I sat back down.

  “I didn’t deserve it, you know,” I said absently to myself, but loud enough for Maya to hear me.

  “Didn’t deserve what?” Maya craned her neck closer to me without taking her eyes off the game.

  “For Tyler to cheat on me.”

  Maya immediately stopped watching the game and eyed me seriously. She shook her head. “No. No, you didn’t.”

  “How am I ever going to trust anyone ever again?”

  “You will,” Maya said confidently.

  “And why do you think that?”

  “Because I know you. You don’t harbor resentment for long. You give people a second chance, probably when they don’t deserve it. You’re an upbeat, positive person. You’ll get through this.”

  A groan sounded from the crowd. The Spartans had scored. My eyes automatically went in search of Cam to see if he was on the ice. No surprise that he wasn’t. His plus/minus rating was amazing. He was amazing.

  Maya commented, “I see your eyes searching for number twelve. You don’t fool me one iota.”

  “I wasn’t searching for Cam.” I tried to hide my grin. “Well, maybe I was.”

  “He’s a great guy, you know,” Maya said. “I know you’re not ready for anything more than a hook-up right now, but don’t keep him at a distance. Someone else will snatch him up.”

  Everyone stood. Shouts of get some glasses, ref and other expletives sounded amongst the crowd because we got a bogus penalty for boarding. We were on the penalty kill and Cam was part of the special teams unit. He was an incredible athlete and moved with such grace and fluidity. His skates stopped and started with absurd speed. I supposed a part of my brain had watched hockey skates for so long that a corner of my right brain saw the beauty in the athleticism. Thus how I managed to create probably my best oil painting to date.

  “I agree, but why hasn’t he been snatched up already?”

  “My guess?” Maya took a sip of her soda before giving a half-shrug. “He was waiting for you to become available.”

  Could it be true? He’d never had a girlfriend, only occasional dates. “But I’m not available.”

  “Sure you are. Tyler is gone. You only need to open your heart to the possibilities.”

  “I only think of Cam as Tyler’s teammate.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The Spartans fired a slap shot from the blue line and Cam squared his body to it. The puck flew so fast I couldn’t even see where it hit, but it must have hit some unpadded part of Cam’s body because he went down on the ice and curled up in ball. “Blow the whistle ref!” I stood up and yelled. My stomach sunk. “Can’t you see he’s hurt!”

  Maya stood beside me. “They can’t stop play every time a player goes down on the ice.”

  “I know that, but look…” I prayed he wasn’t hurt badly. He slowly got up. He remained hunched over but glided to the bench. “It looks like he’s okay.”

  “That’s the way, Choir Boy!” someone yelled.

  My heart beat slowly returned to normal. I moved to my right, then left, hoping for a glimpse of the bench to see if Cam was okay.

  “Why do they call him Choir Boy again?” Maya asked.

  “Just about everyone on the team has a nickname. Cam got his because Tyler said he sings in the shower.”

  “Cute. Well, it’s obvious you care about him,” Maya said. “I haven’t pressed you about what went on between the two of you on Saturday. I know he took you back to our room, but did anything happen? I keep waiting for you to tell me.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I told him we could only be friends.”

  “Ah, so my guess is right. He wants to be more.”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “And you aren’t open to that possibility?”

  “No, and I told him so. In fact, I don’t think he even wants to be friends now. I haven’t heard from him all week.”

  “And this bothers you?”

  My face heated and I fisted my hands. “Of course it bothers me.”

  Maya didn’t say anything, but I could see the wheels in her head turning. Cam went back on the ice a few shifts later, but I was still worried. “Maybe we should stay afterwards when the team comes out so we can make sure he’s okay.”

  “Sure, we can do that.” Maya smiled.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d say to Cam, but I wanted to know if he was really okay. It wasn’t uncommon for players to keep playing even though they were hurt. “How can I convince him that we are better off just being friends? What can I say?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is, if a guy as hot as Cam was after me, I’d be re-thinking my ideas of staying only friends.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re a lot of help.”

  “What can I say?” She shrugged. “I’m trying to understand your stance on this, I really am.”

  “I’m done with hockey players, okay?” I clenched my jaw, wondering who I was trying to convince, myself or Maya. And how ironic that if I was so done with hockey players, then how did I manage to have one in my bed last weekend? I was a complete conundrum even to myself.

  We ended up losing the game 1-0. Not a big surprise, since the Spartans had a better record than us. I waited outside the locker room with Maya, wondering exactly what I was going to say to Cam.

  Other rink bunnies and pucks stood around waiting, too. They eyed me when they saw me, then whispered to their friends. I could only imagine what they were saying. “There’s Tyler Killion’s ex-girlfriend. I heard he cheated on her, then moved to the east coast.” Whatever. Why speculate? Why care? I wasn’t going to give them any power over me.

  I whispered to Maya, “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I thought you wanted to talk to Cam. You know, make sure he’s okay.”

  “I can just text him.”

  Maya gave me that look. A look that said she didn’t believe me. “I’m sure it would mean a lot to him that you were waiting here after the game. So he knows you care.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “He’s pissed at me.”

  “He’s not. He’s just disappointed that you don’t want to give him a chance to be more than friends.”

  She knew something. She’d been talking to Cam, but I wasn’t going to accuse her of anything. “Why do you know so much?”

  “I’ve watched him watch you for the past two years. I’m pretty smart that way.”

  “Oh God, you’re going to tell me he’s been pining for me for two years?”

  “No. More like two and a half years.” She narrowed her gaze at me. “But I am here to tell you he won�
��t wait around forever, you know.”

  “What is this, a conspiracy?” They had to be teaming up.

  “Not at all. You need to understand the playing field here.”

  “And you need to understand I’m not interested in dating anyone.”

  Maya held up her hands. “Fine, fine. Don’t let me talk you into anything.” She tipped her chin up. “Here they come now.”

  The players filed out of the locker room in slacks, ties, and sport coats, with warm winter jackets over that. They always dressed up on game days. Besides a few missing teeth, hockey players cleaned up real nice.

  With at least two dozen girls standing around us, I felt like a groupie. Of course if I was being honest, there were parents, grandparents, and some community members in the crowd too. Why did I think I needed to speak with Cam right now? I could talk to him tomorrow or the next day, he was clearly in demand right now. I turned to Maya and pulled on her coat sleeve. “Let’s go. I shouldn’t have come down here.”

  From a sidelong glance, I spotted Cam. His dark brown, still-wet hair and caramel colored eyes locked with mine. The crowd of people momentarily disappeared while I gaped at just how good-looking he was. My heart thumped and face flushed. I had to remind myself why I was here, to see if he was injured, and to know he was going to be okay.

  He ambled toward us, but got stopped by another girl. I’d seen her around campus, but didn’t know her. They were standing awfully close to one another as they talked. Cam nodded his head as though in agreement with her about something. She smiled and chatted, and I asked myself why I even cared. He placed his hand on her shoulder before she scurried away.

  A twinge in my belly had me wondering if I was jealous or only nervous about talking to Cam after the horrible way I’d slammed his truck door five days ago. I shouldn’t have come here. I’d made myself clear where things stood between us, so why did I insist on muddying the waters? Cam walked closer to us and I wanted to run.

  “Hey,” he said first.

  “Hey.” I nodded, steeling my nerves. “You played great.”