by Diana Wieler
“Why?”
“You have to lock the door with the ignition key.” His father looked at him and winked. “So you can’t lock the keys in the car.” Tully burst into surprised laughter. “And if you tell your mother I said that, I’ll kill you!”
Tully loved it. He sat grinning for a long time.
They drove around the little city, the purpose of the ride forgotten. The streetlights had come on and passed over the Mustang’s hood with calming regularity. The tension didn’t leave Tully, but it loosened its grip on him. Sitting in the passenger seat, he felt like a kid again, any kid, out for a ride with his dad.
How long had it been, he wondered, since it had been so easy to be with someone? Since autumn, he thought with a pang. Since A.J.
Then his father said, “So, what’s new?” and Tully took a deep breath.
“Dad … I want to quit the team.”
The boy could feel the shock from across the car. For a moment there was no sound.
“Why?” Mr. Brown said quietly.
“Because it isn’t fun anymore,” Tully said, wringing the leather mitts on his lap. “Because everybody takes it so seriously, you know? If you lose you feel like garbage, and if you win you get strung out wondering how you’re going to keep winning. It isn’t just a bunch of guys going out to play the best they can. Everybody’s so psyched out that you start blaming each other and maybe you even hate each other …” He trailed off, too close to the nerve.
“Well, what did you think it was going to be like when you tried out for the team?” his father asked.
Tully was stumped. During the whirlwind of tryouts, he hadn’t thought of anything except playing the best he could and impressing Landau. And getting picked was such a rush. That had carried him for a long time. But somehow not long enough.
Another high dive, Tully thought. Another wild leap with his eyes closed and the pool bottom coming up too fast. And he knew without thinking that he picked teams the way he chose lovers, the way he found a party, or lost a friend.
“Look,” Mr. Brown said, cutting into his thoughts, “this is your decision. But you’ve made a commitment to this team. Why don’t you wait until after the Christmas break? It might be different after everyone’s had a rest.”
Tully nodded. But as they rounded the last corner for home, he knew that some things would not wait until after Christmas; some things were finished now. He hoped he wasn’t too late.
FOURTEEN
A.J. woke with a painful start Saturday morning. He sat up, expecting to rush somewhere, or cram for something. For a few moments he waited, blinking in the darkness, before he realized that exams were over.
He looked at the clock and grimaced: 5:15 a.m. The alarm hadn’t even been set. He thought about going back to sleep, but he couldn’t. An exam-awakening was like an ice-water treatment.
A hot shower helped. In the second-storey bathroom he tried to scrub the week away — the frenzy of studying, the anxiety of asking Summer out. The soap had an herbal smell — unfamiliar but nice — and afterwards he just stood under the water, absorbing the heat and sensation. A shower was a little miracle, A.J. thought. It could make you feel human again.
He didn’t dress to go downstairs, just pulled on a bathrobe. He couldn’t bear to put jeans, underwear and a shirt on his talc-smooth body. He felt too good, too free.
He smelled the coffee on the landing, the smell of someone awake and at home, and he was surprised by how glad he was. He was hungry for company.
His father worked shifts, and A.J. could never keep track of which Saturdays he had off.
Just be nice, A.J. told himself. Don’t even bring up the subject of her. Be nice and just talk to him, and don’t get worked up into a sweat. Maybe it’ll be a nice day. It had been so long since he’d felt hopeful. The first lights of dawn lit up his wet hair as he walked into the kitchen.
He stopped cold. June was sitting at the kitchen table wearing one of his father’s old bathrobes. She looked plain and girlish without make-up, and she had her feet up on another chair. The robe opened above her knees, and the shock of bare skin seemed miles long.
Her eyes widened. She obviously hadn’t been expecting him at this hour on a Saturday. A.J. turned abruptly to the counter.
She slept here, he thought, his fingertips pressed on the countertop, bracing him. She spent the night with my father.
A wave of disgust whipped through him. It seemed incomprehensible. His dad was forty-three years old, for Christ’s sake. His dad. This was vile. They were both vile.
His first impulse was to bolt from the room. Then he realized that his robe only came to mid-thigh. He was horribly vulnerable.
But shock was kindling into anger. This is my house, not hers, A.J. thought. Anybody should feel unwanted, it’s her. She already felt too bloody at home as it was. He had to show her, put her in her place. A.J. groped for the bag of muffins, conscious only of the edge of his nightrobe rubbing his skin four inches above his knee.
June had regained her poise. “Good morning,” she said.
A.J. split a fresh carrot muffin and began to butter it. The butter was cold and tore the soft insides apart.
“Where’s my dad?”
“At work. You’re up early for a day you don’t have to go to school.” She sounded so cool, so sure of herself.
“How old are you?” he asked suddenly.
There was a pause. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
A.J. twisted halfway around to meet her eyes, keeping the front of his robe towards the cupboards. “Yeah, I think it is my business,” he said evenly. “You’re sitting in my house.”
“This is your father’s house,” she said, “and I am his guest, Allan James.”
The boy’s temperature sparked and flared. He hated his full name; he never told it to people. That she should know it — and use it — made him feel even more naked.
“The name’s A.J,” he said hotly.
“And I’m June Fehr,” she said. “How do you do.”
A.J. was aware that he was breathing too fast. What kind of woman was this? In all the time she had spent here, he had spoken to her directly maybe three times. A.J. allowed himself to absorb her cautiously with his eyes.
Her bare feet were flat on the floor now, knees drawn together, comfortable. How could she sit there, naked under his father’s bathrobe, after a night of God knew what, and look so … dignified?
He turned his back on her and began to eat his muffin over the sink. The memory of her bare legs burned in his mind. He pressed himself against the cupboards to keep what was happening from happening.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked.
“Doing what?”
Screwing around with an old man, he wanted to say. “Going out with my dad,” he said. “Leading him on.”
June laughed, a clear, surprised sound as light as sea spray. “I know you’re not going to believe this,” she said, “but I like him.”
“You’re young enough to be his daughter,” A.J. said thickly.
The kitchen fell into silence. A.J. exulted that he had hit the nerve, stung her. But when June started to speak, she sounded serious, not hurt.
“Did it ever occur to you that that’s not your concern?” June said. “Did you ever think there was a part of your father that has nothing to do with you?”
A.J. straightened. I’m his freaking kid, he wanted to shout. It’s got everything to do with me.
June stood up. He heard the rustle as she tightened the bathrobe belt.
“I like your dad a lot,” she said. “I want to like you, too. But it’s not necessary, A.J. Your dad doesn’t need your permission to be happy.”
And then she touched him. On her way out of the kitchen she reached up and patted his back, between his shoulder blades. It jarred him worse than if she’d screamed at him.
He stared out the kitchen window, angry and aroused and perplexed and just a little in awe of her. “By t
he time I hit the blue line, I want you at the point,” Mendel was saying.
“Right,” Kafke said.
“Not before,” Mendel said. “Don’t get there and sit like a moron. Coast into it. Be sly, for Christ’s sake. But when I get to the blue line, be there.”
“Yeah, right,” Kafke said irritably.
“And be ready,” Mendel stressed. “Because as soon as I pass, I’m gonna snap. Give and go.”
Give and go. It was one of the simplest passing manoeuvres in the book, one of the first combinations you learned. But Mendel was explaining it as though Kafke was new to the planet.
“Don’t jerk around,” Mendel said. “Just take it and let go again. Nothing fancy. Got it?”
“I got it, I got it!” Kafke snapped. “For cryin’ out loud, Mendel, I’ve been playing this game since I was six.”
He turned abruptly and moved away, disgusted.
“Just be there! You hear me?” Mendel called after him.
There was no response. A.J. heard Mendel thunk his stick irritably on the spongy black floor.
They were good friends, Kafke and Mendel. They had played together, on and off, for a long time. This was going to be one of those games, A.J. thought.
The locker room was abnormally quiet, the silence magnified by the little bursts of conversation, short and intense. Tempers were strung like tripwires across the room.
The guys were usually so revved before a game, especially lately, with the wins stacking up like poker chips. Tonight was different. Tonight they were tuned into themselves, their own rituals, their own rhythms.
Even Landau was on edge. He had never been a jovial coach, but after the first few games, he had treated them like adults, sort of. Maybe lesser adults. Now as he mingled among them, barking orders, goading them, A.J. felt an uncomfortable pull backwards to the beginning of the season.
“All right, gentlemen,” Landau said. “I think you know what you’re up against.”
They did. The Cyclones had played the first-ranked Broncos early in the season, in exhibition. A.J. remembered the wild run of that game, sprinter’s pace, and the stunning 10-1 loss that had left them feeling raw. The Broncos had serious talent. Three of their players had already been signed for Junior hockey, two of them in major cities.
“No B.S. and no backtalk. I don’t care what kind of streak you think you’re on.” The lines looked cut into Landau’s face. “Run your patterns and hustle, every single second you’re on. Or they’re going to make you look like a joke — and not a private one, either.”
A.J. knew it was true. Scouts had the tendency to show up at Bronco games. The team brought out the best — and worst — in their opposition. They also merited newspaper space. Ted Lloyl had almost taken them up as his personal cause. Yeah, it’s real tough to cheer for number one, A.J. thought acidly. But Lloyl applauded the Broncos’ “clean style, aggressive but smart. These young men spend their time skating, not brawling. Considering their position in the league, that should tell you something about how the game should be played.”
A.J. was already wound up for this contest. Knowing that Ted Lloyl was probably sitting out there, pen poised for vindication, made his palms swim and his mouth run dry. He would have sold his soul to have his two assists back, to have them happen tonight.
Instead, he concentrated. For real this time, A.J. vowed. No matter what happens, no matter what Landau wants, you’re not going to play the bruiser tonight.
The Cyclones knew what to expect from the Broncos. They had read about them, analyzed them, dissected their style. But it didn’t make a bit of difference. A.J. skated out into what felt like a windstorm. The forwards were nimble, quick-thinking. When they were in the Cyclone end, A.J. found himself scrambling to keep up to them, never mind ahead of them.
And that wasn’t his only problem. He found himself running into a lot of elbows. The Broncos hit him at the slightest excuse. If they got him to the boards, they dug in hard. For this team, touted for its lack of violence, it was unnatural.
A.J.’s first reflex was to get mad, but he reined himself back by trying to think it through. Were they trying to provoke him into a penalty? Or were they — he felt a stab of déjà vu — just giving him the message that they wouldn’t put up with bulldozing?
It could be either, A.J. thought. But something occurred to him as he settled onto the bench, his shift over. They had been slamming him, not guarding him. No one had seemed too concerned when he was close to the puck, not like they were with Weitzammer or Pilka or Lavalle.
They had bought it, A.J. realized, a shiver running over him. The Bad Boy image. It was all they expected of him. A.J. leaned forward, his eyes fastening onto the play, tuning it into focus.
Weitzammer was taking a beating. Every time he stepped onto the ice, the Broncos deliberately cranked up the pace. Even when he didn’t have the puck, they rode him incessantly. His shifts became shorter and shorter, and he came off open-mouthed, gasping, too tired even to swear.
It soon dawned on A.J. why they were so afraid of Weitzammer. The Bronco hotshots were as dangerous as promised; they were play-makers, combo workers. But they had to be — they were working in front of a weak net.
He didn’t get much of a chance to be sure; most of the first period was spent in the Cyclone end. But whenever the play crept over centre ice, his eyes were rivetted to the goalie.
He’s moving too far out of the crease, A.J. thought. He’s moving out too far and too soon. The few blocks the goalie made were shoddy. He had to scramble for saves Terry Frances could make in his sleep. If it came to a one-on-one with Weitzammer — or almost anybody — this goaltender would lose. But in the first period, it never came to that. The Cyclones trooped wearily into the dressing room, down 2-0.
Landau was walking three inches off the ground.
“I cannot believe this,” he said, biting the words. “What the hell are you doing out there? Pilka — somebody tape your elbows down? They won’t break off if you use them, you know.” He swivelled around. “And Lavalle, I’d say you were stoned if I didn’t know you were such a lazy S.O.B.”
Landau stung, and stung again. They were sloppy, they were disorganized. They were letting Weitzammer do all the work.
Despite it all, A.J. could not keep down the hope that kept bobbing in him like a cork. For Pete’s sake, we’re up against the first-place team, he thought. The last time we played the Broncos, we were down four nothing by now. So we’re twice as good as we were.
And he was thinking about something else. A surprise. If the chance came up. The idea was so sweet that he grinned as he readied himself for the next period. He lifted his head to put on his helmet and caught Tully watching him from across the room, curious, intent. A.J. turned abruptly and headed for the door.
He had a good second period, now that his vision had sharpened. He consciously toned down his movements to textbook defense, doing what he had to to get by. He even had a few smooth plays — skilfully creating an opening for Kafke, who was trapped behind the net — that set his insides humming.
You’re doing okay, A.J. told himself. Lloyl can’t pick you apart tonight. You’ll be all right — even if your chance doesn’t come up.
But it did.
At the eight-minute mark, the puck was in the Cyclone end, as usual. A Bronco forward had it at the end line, near the boards. Normally it would be A.J.’s job to guard him, but for some reason, Grummett was already there, and A.J. was at the point. Trapped, the forward turned and shot, hoping to deflect it off the boards to his defenseman, who was waiting at the blue line.
As soon the forward released, A.J.’s stomach flipped. Bad angle — too sharp. He lunged, and intercepted the puck just outside the point.
The Bronco defenseman hadn’t moved. He didn’t expect the goon to carry the puck. A.J. was supposed to pass.
Jackpot! A.J. bolted forward, praying somebody had anticipated this, praying somebody was there.
“Side!” Tully scr
eamed. A.J. let the shot fly, just a breath in front of the blue line. The puck went winging across the ice, where Tully caught it in front of the centre line.
A.J. was barrelling down the ice. He had surprised the Bronco defenseman, captured himself a few precious seconds’ head start, but he knew it couldn’t last. Already he sensed the Bronco gaining, and his lungs were on fire.
Then, at the edge of his vision, he saw it — Tully winding up for the pass. It was like a slam of electricity. A.J. lurched forward without thinking, and the next thing he knew he was flying over the Bronco blue line, the puck on his stick.
Oh, shit, now what? his insides cried. He never got this far. He couldn’t remember which was his best shot. He couldn’t remember if he had a best shot. The goalie had moved out, anticipating. A.J. sucked in his breath and fired, not even sure which corner of the net he was aiming for.
The top right. The Cyclones screamed like idiots. They pounded him until his exhausted body almost collapsed. But moments later he was dancing on the ice, swimming in the second sweet flood of adrenaline.
All right! his heart sang. All goddamn right! When he finally skated for the bench, he was certain he could have skipped up the seats to the roof of the arena, in his skates.
Just in front of the gate, an arm caught him around the neck and he was jerked back into a headlock. He felt a glove cuff his helmet.
“Great play,” Tully said. “Jesus! Great play.”
He released A.J., pushing him forward so that the husky defenseman almost stumbled into the box. A.J. kept going, too startled to react. He dropped into his seat and fixed his eyes on the play, which had started again. His cheeks were burning.
You, too, A.J. thought. Great play, Tul. But he couldn’t have said it out loud.
The goal energized a tired team. The Cyclones leapt into the second half of the period. But the Broncos were leaping, too. In the fading seconds, one of the Bronco “Super Three” nailed in an unassisted point. The Cyclones dragged themselves in for another session with Landau, again down by two.
A.J. sat with the others. He listened. He looked properly chastened.