Niki looked away in an attempt to conceal the crack in her mulish determination. “Forget I brought it up. I don’t want to talk about it, about us. All I’m trying to say is that I don’t trust Alison.”
“And you don’t trust me either, it seems.”
“I didn’t say that.” Niki met her gaze this time. Her voice cracked as she said, “What is it you want from me, Eva?”
They sat in silence, Eva unable to put into words what she wanted, how she felt. Niki stood finally, a flash of anguish on her face before it disappeared completely. “I don’t know who to trust in this goddamned business anymore. It’s fucking lonely sometimes, all right? It just, I don’t know, it pisses me off that we tried so hard with this new strategy and it was all for nothing.”
Eva touched Niki’s wrist, knowing that in the mood she was in, it was a risky thing to do. “I know. But I’m not Alison, okay? You know I don’t believe in that unethical shit.” She wasn’t about to share with Niki that she didn’t trust Dani Compton either, because she had no hard evidence that Dani—or Alison—had done anything wrong.
Niki gave her a last look before brushing past her, leaving Eva to wonder whether they’d reached a new understanding or just widened the fissure between them.
Chapter Twelve
Empty Net
Being back home, though it wouldn’t be long enough, was a slice of heaven for Niki. The best part was sleeping in her own bed, but a close second was waking up to find Rory attempting to make them pancakes for breakfast. It was the Christmas break, and the two glorious weeks at home would give Niki some much-needed rest. She would put in a few hours of work too though, going through game and practice videos, mapping out new drills and new strategies, responding to emails, conducting a couple of telephone interviews with journalists. There wasn’t much time left to fine-tune the team.
Niki poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot Rory had made. She took a sip and the bitterness nearly made her wince, but kudos to the kid for trying. “This looks great, honey. What do you want to do today, anything special?”
Rory used two hands on the spatula to try to flip a pancake. She pulled it off with only a splatter or two.
“Wow, you’re getting good at that.” What else was she missing living away from her daughter? It was a little thing, a stupid thing, but it was almost enough to make her cry.
“It’s no big deal, Mom. It’s just pancakes.”
“Ah, pancakes today, gourmet meals tomorrow.”
The scowl Rory gave Niki was an instant preview of her teenaged years, which were rushing at them with lightning speed, it seemed.
“Do you want to go to the pool at the university? Or maybe see a movie?” Niki asked.
“I want to work on my school project. I have to hand it in as soon as the holidays are over.”
“But the holidays are just starting.” Already, she could see that Rory was going to be an overachiever, much like she had been at her age. She hated seeing her daughter put stress on herself so early in life. Lord knew there was more than enough of it to go around in adulthood, but kids always wanted to grow up so fast. Enjoy being a kid for as long as you can, she had told Rory many times, but it usually fell on deaf ears. “What’s your project about?”
“I have to pick a hero and write an essay about them.”
A horrifying thought occurred to Niki. Please don’t tell me you’re going to pick Eva. She clutched her coffee mug in a death grip. “Do you know who you’re going to pick?”
“I can’t pick a family member or an athlete.” She rolled her eyes, a mini teenager again. “Cuz my teacher says athletes aren’t real heroes. So I was thinking I’d pick Roberta Bondar. You know, Canada’s first woman astronaut?”
Niki blinked in relief. “That sounds perfect, honey. I remember when she went up in space. My high school class got to watch the launch on TV. Want some help with it?”
“Okay.” Rory lifted the pancakes from the frying pan and carefully stacked them on a plate, which she carried to the kitchen island. Maple syrup and a can of whipped cream stood beside their plates and utensils. She’d thought of everything.
“Mmm, this looks wonderful. Thank you for making us breakfast.”
Rory shrugged like it was no biggie and sat down beside her mother. “Mom. Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.” Niki poured syrup on her pancake and forked a piece. Her waistline didn’t need the whipped cream.
“How come you and Eva broke up?”
Niki barely managed to swallow the lump of pancake in her throat before she choked on it. “Why do you want to know about that? It was a long time ago. Before you were born.”
“I know. But I like her. And you’re my mom. So…”
Niki hedged. She wasn’t ready for heart-to-heart talks about romantic relationships with her kid. Or maybe there was no such thing as being ready. Maybe you had to go with it when the opportunity presented itself and hope you didn’t sound like an idiot. “It’s sort of complicated.”
“Mom.” Rory scolded her with eyes that were shiny and black as oil, so much like Eva’s that it stole Niki’s breath for a moment. “I’m not a baby. You can tell me, and I want to know what happened.”
“Fine.” Niki took another bite to stall for time. She didn’t know how much to say, what to leave out and what to leave in, how much Rory would understand. Yes she was still a kid, but she was growing up fast, and she was much more mature than the average ten-and-a-half-year-old. “We met in college. I was a year ahead of her. She was a rookie on our hockey team that year.”
“Was it love at first sight?”
Would this kid ever stop surprising her? “How do you know about that kind of stuff?”
Rory shrugged. “I watch TV. I read books.”
“I see. And have you ever felt, you know, love at first sight with somebody?”
“I thought I did with James, but he was too into himself. But now I think I might be, you know, with Margot. She moved to my school in the fall. She’s, like, the bomb!”
More hurt than stunned, Niki clamped her mouth shut. If her daughter was in love with somebody, especially with another girl, then she needed to be here for her. She needed to support her. Jenny and Tim were good people, great people. But Rory was her daughter, her responsibility. It tore her in half to think that she hadn’t known her own kid was in love with another girl.
“I see,” she said carefully, hiding her pain from Rory. One thing she’d learned early on about parenting was to emphasize the positive, to try to be a good role model, even when it was hard. Especially when it was hard. “That’s wonderful, honey. When can I meet Margot?”
“She and her family went to Florida for the holidays, so it’ll have to wait. But you’re changing the subject, Mom.”
“Fine. How did you get so smart anyway?”
Rory shrugged. “I’ve always been smart.”
“Of course you have. Okay. Yes. It was love at first sight. Eva and I were inseparable for four years. We did everything together, especially hockey.”
“So how come you broke up?”
Niki explained about the top secret floppy disks that had been planted in her hockey bag for Eva to discover. She watched her daughter’s eyes widen in shock, then in outrage.
“Eva blamed you?”
“At first, yes.”
“But why would she do that? Didn’t she love you? I mean, didn’t she trust you?”
“I guess the answer isn’t that easy. We were both under a lot of pressure. It was the first Olympic Games for women’s hockey, so the stakes were huge. Eva’s coach wanted us to hate each other. She thought that’s what needed to happen if her team was going to win. We were both a bit, I don’t know…” Niki paused, thinking back to how preoccupied she and Eva had been at the time, how insulated and narrow-minded they’d become in the cauldron of the Olympic Games. “We were immature. Too into ourselves. Neither of us seemed to want to fight very hard for our relationship.”
“How come?”
Niki thought for a long moment. “We were young. So at the time, it seemed simpler to give up. You see, sometimes when you’re young, and you have your whole future ahead of you, you think that you have time.”
“Time for what?”
“To get it right. To find somebody else. To find that kind of love again. Or maybe to do the whole thing over again.” She hadn’t known how to fight for a relationship, and neither had Eva. They only knew how to fight for the puck, how to battle to win a hockey game, how to compete against others. Oh, yes. They were good at competing, but not so good at harmonizing, at putting the other above their own needs and desires, at seeing and appreciating the bigger picture. It was no wonder their relationship had self-destructed.
“Do you wish Eva and you never broke up?”
Testifying in court would be easier than this, but Rory had a right to know her. Which meant knowing and understanding her past, warts and all. “Yes and no, as confusing as that sounds. As much as we loved each other, I’m not sure we were meant to be together forever.”
It took a moment for the panic to register on her daughter’s face.
“But you were meant to be with my mother, right?”
Niki reached out and placed her arm around Rory’s narrow shoulders. “Yes, honey, I was meant to be with your mother. We loved each other very much. You don’t ever have to worry about that.”
Rory leaned into her. “Good. So you won’t forget about her, right?”
“Nope. Never.”
* * *
Eva groaned in the direction of the massive departure board. Her flight from Minneapolis to Detroit was delayed for at least another hour because of a snowstorm that had planted itself over Chicago. She was used to the Midwest’s volatile winter weather; she just didn’t like it when it messed with her travel plans.
She pulled out her phone and texted Kath, who was also somewhere in the airport, waiting for a flight to Denver so she could spend Christmas with her parents. Eva texted her that her flight was delayed and asked if she had time for a drink in one of the airport bars. Kath said she did.
“You look royally pissed off. I didn’t think you were that anxious to get to your brother’s,” Kathleen said to her.
“I’m not. Spending time with my brother’s not exactly at the top of my Dear Santa list. But I am anxious to have some rest and to see my nephews.”
Eva’s brother Michael was four years younger and worked in the IT department at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. As kids they’d been close, though it was mostly adoration on Michael’s end as he attempted to emulate everything his big sister did. The problem was, he wasn’t nearly as good in sports as she was and as he wanted to be. They grew apart as their athletic accomplishments became more disparate. Once Eva left for college, they only saw each other a couple of times a year. With both their parents out of the picture—their father had suffered a fatal heart attack nine years ago and their mother remarried a wealthy Greek national and lived in Crete—the siblings felt compelled to spend Christmas, or at least part of it, together.
“How long are you staying with him?”
Christmas was four days away. “Not long. I’m going to Traverse City on the twenty-fourth to spend a few days at home before I come back here. I’ll probably have to think up an excuse to leave his place on Christmas Eve.”
Kath sipped her beer. “If you need me to place a timely call, let me know.”
“Hey, that’s not a bad idea. I could always say the property managers of my house are calling to tell me my pipes are frozen or the roof’s caved in from snow load or something.” She grinned. “Thanks, Kath. I feel better already.”
“Well, in any case, enjoy the change of scene.”
They clinked glasses before Eva took a sip of beer. “I will. I can’t wait to spend ten days thinking of everything but hockey. I’m not even going to pick up a hockey stick, unless it’s to play some road hockey with my nephews.”
Kathleen laughed. “Can you really do that? Take that kind of a mental break from hockey right now?”
“Probably not.” She’d run every day and hit the gym every other. She’d probably watch hockey on television. And think about Niki and what she and Rory were doing over the holidays, particularly since they’d be so close geographically—Niki in Windsor and Eva right across the border.
The holidays always made Eva feel as though she were a scrap of paper being picked up and tossed in the air by every gust of wind, with only random places to land. She envied Niki for having Rory, for having a family, but the thought only made her feel guilty, because while Niki had gained a daughter, she’d also lost a wife in the process. Christmas was probably a sad time for them.
“You know,” she said to her friend, consciously turning her thoughts elsewhere, “something’s been bugging me about that game in Toronto against Canada.”
“Me, too,” Kath replied with a straight face. “We couldn’t score more than one goal against them. What was up with that?”
“No, I’m serious. The fact that we deciphered from the very first shift how they were going to bust out of their end. It’s like we knew what they were going to do before they did it. The whole first period, they couldn’t get out of their own end.”
“Lucky guess on our part?”
Eva shook her head. “No. It was Dani who jumped on it right away. Kath, Dani’s not that good. She knew what they were going to do. And she knew it before the game even started.”
“What do you mean?”
“The night before the game, at the bowling alley, she and a couple of others were whispering and giggling like little kids. When I asked them what was up, Dani said she’d heard talk around the rink about a new breakout strategy for Canada. I figured it was just bullshit. You know how rumors like that fly around all the time.”
“And now you’re thinking she actually did know.”
Something hollow formed in Eva’s stomach. “Niki told me afterward it was top secret, that nobody outside her team knew about it. I asked Dani about it after the game and she denied she knew anything for sure. But she knew, dammit. She knew exactly what Canada was doing before they even did it.”
Kathleen closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “Shit. It’s kind of making sense now.”
“What’s making sense?”
“That same night, I didn’t feel like dinner in the hotel or joining you guys at the bowling alley. I went for a long walk and stopped at this tiny bistro on Bay Street. I was about to walk in the door when I saw Alison and Lynn O’Reilly at a table for two, their heads together.”
“What?” Eva’s throat went dry. “Heads together how? Like lovebirds?”
Kathleen shook her head. “Definitely not that kind of thing going on. They didn’t look particularly happy or cozy. But definitely like they were having some kind of serious discussion. Needless to say, I didn’t want them to see me and hightailed it away from there.”
“Jesus, Kath. Those two having dinner together, that’s definitely not cool. It sounds downright dirty to me.” The possibility of some kind of spying or collusion going on incensed Eva. It was looking more and more like a repeat of the Nagano Olympics, when Alison’s disingenuous and morally corrupt antics led to her and Niki’s ugly breakup. Couldn’t people just damned well play hockey to the best of their abilities and let the chips fall where they may?
“Easy now,” Kathleen said, reading her anger in her clenched fists.
“God, that’s such bullshit. Isn’t it enough to try to beat Canada on the ice? Do we really have to resort to dirty tactics to get the upper hand?” She scrubbed her cheeks in frustration. “I should have known Alison hadn’t changed a bit.”
“Of course Alison hasn’t changed. It’s who she is.”
“That’s not good enough. She ruins peoples’ lives with this crap.” She’d certainly ruined a future together for her and Niki. “I should walk out on this fucking team. Or report her ass.”
Kathleen’s hand locked onto Eva’s wrist. “You’re not going to do either one. The team needs you. And not just your skills, they need your leadership, your moral compass too. You’re a role model, and if you leave, Alison’s dirty ways win the day.” She relaxed her grip on Eva. “And besides, we don’t know that she and Lynn O’Reilly were up to anything unethical. There’s no proof that it wasn’t anything but a friendly dinner. And there’s no proof that Dani wasn’t acting on a hunch. A hunch informed by rumors that just happened to be accurate.”
Eva stewed a few more minutes before reluctantly agreeing she wouldn’t do anything rash or stupid. Which included alerting Niki that some sort of colluding might be going on. She checked her watch, saw it was time to head to her gate. She gave Kathleen a hug.
“Stay in touch,” Kathleen said, hugging her back. “And stay out of trouble.”
“You too. And Kath? Thanks for staying friends with me after…you know.”
“It’s okay. I always knew we made better friends than lovers.”
Chapter Thirteen
One-timer
It was late in the evening and well past Niki’s preferred bedtime when Team Canada’s shuttle bus eased up in front of the Westin Resort in Whistler, B.C. Their flight had been delayed a couple of hours and traffic on Highway 99 from Vancouver to Whistler was so slow, Niki threatened she could have made it faster by walking. It was two days after New Year’s. Perhaps, she thought with further irritation, everyone was stuck back in 2009 and in no hurry to get on with the present.
While a team staff member registered the group with the desk clerk, Niki, Lynn and the players hovered in the lobby awaiting their room assignments. The players would bunk two to a room, but rank allowed Niki and Lynn their own rooms.
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