Wicked Winters: A Collection of Winter Tales

by Lucy Smoke

  “Roommate has an exam, so you all gotta go. Grab your shit, and get out of the apartment.”

  All of the people filed out the door, grabbing their discarded jackets, gloves, and beanies. I looked around the living area and noted all of the mess, which I sure as hell wasn’t cleaning up.

  Vinnie shut the front door, called out a “Night dude” and headed off to his room.

  Well, I guess that was the end of that conversation.

  39

  Hayden

  Thursday 21st December – 4 days until Christmas

  Exams were finally over; today was officially the first day of winter break. Most students would stay on campus for the day and head home tomorrow. I glanced over at Steph’s bed and saw that she hadn’t come home last night.

  A smile lit my face as I remembered our conversation from yesterday. She and James had finally had The Conversation, and she had been the one to initiate it. From what I had gathered, it hadn’t actually been a conversation, more like Steph telling James exactly what was going on between them. Exclusivity being the key word. I was really happy for them, glad that something good had come out of this horrendous story.

  I stayed in bed for a while, playing on my phone, reading a book, just general lazing about. It was nice not to have to rush anywhere, no classes, no meetings, no… dates. Sighing at that last bit, I sat up and reached forward for my laptop on my desk. Putting it on my lap over the top of my quilt, I turned it on, and when it was ready, I accessed my emails.

  I had a few spam emails and a couple from The Press journalists, but I ignored all of those and went to my sent mail. I found the email I’d sent to the web guy on Thursday afternoon. Clicking it open, I downloaded the attachment to my computer.

  When the file had finished downloading, I opened it and scrolled to the section I was after. When I found my Puck Games article, I copied all the content and pasted it into a new document, saving it into my portfolio folder. I spent a few hours tiding up my articles, making sure the formatting was correct, checking all the details on my resume, confirming I had references. Just making sure everything was perfect.

  Once I was happy with how everything looked, I opened the internship page on the student portal and filtered the applications down to ‘All Media in New York City.’ Seven options came up, so I just opened them all in new tabs, figuring I would spend the day uploading all my things to each paper. But before I started, I needed to eat and have a shower.

  I did the latter first, washing my hair as well. When I was done, I made a cup of tea and a bowl of Cheerios. Picking up my laptop, I put it down on my desk leaving enough room for my bowl and cup. Starting on the first application, I worked my way through the majority of the questions and file uploads before I hit a request for something I didn’t have. A written referral. Crap.

  Who could I ask for that? I didn’t really have a mentor, and I didn’t get seriously involved in any of my classes since I had to devote too much time to The Press this year. I could have slapped myself. Professor Turner, she would definitely give me a reference.

  I quickly packed up my laptop, slipping it into my messenger bag. I pulled on my parka, beanie, and mittens, before I grabbed my bag and left my dorm, being sure to lock it. Heading across campus, I passed a snowball fight on my way. I had to duck a poorly aimed ball as it zoomed past my head. There was a shouted apology, which I just acknowledged by putting my hand in the air. Déjà vu pulled at me.

  When I finally made it to the building with Professor Turner’s office in it, I was seriously thankful. Some of my hair had still been a bit damp, and had started feeling a bit icy, especially with the light coating of snow that had just started falling.

  I quickly navigated my way through the hallways approaching her office. When I got there I knocked, but there was no answer. Damn, please don’t have left campus yet. I started to head back to the reception desk, when Professor Turner walked out of a door just up from me on the left.

  “Hayden! It’s nice to see you. Last day on campus?” she called out to me as she approached.

  “Hi, Professor Turner. Actually, I’m not going home. Mom and Dad went on a vacation to get away from the cold this year, so I’ll be staying on campus. I came to ask you for a favor,” I replied, just getting right to the point. If I let her, we would be standing here trading pleasantries for hours.

  “We do seem to swap a lot of those,” she said with an indulgent smile as she gestured for me to walk with her back to her office. Once we were settled in our seats, she looked up at me over her desk. “Now, what can I help you with?”

  “I was hoping that you could give me a written reference for my internship applications? It’s the only thing that I’m missing, and since you’re the paper’s sponsor and what with the article on the women’s shelter, I just thought you would be the perfect person.” I finished with a smile. I didn’t think she would say no, but I was still a little nervous.

  “Oh, sure thing! When do you need it by?”

  “Um well, I was hoping you could write it now? It only needs to be one or two paragraphs. I brought my laptop with me. You could just type it straight on here to save you from having to email it.” I’d learned from past experiences that if I needed something from her, it was best to get it then and there; otherwise, it got added to her never ending to do pile.

  She stared at me nonplussed for a second; her eyes blinked several times.

  I quickly opened my bag and pulled out my laptop, looking at her with my best puppy dog eyes. “It would mean so much to me. I want to get all of my applications done over the winter break since I’m staying on campus and not heading home to spend time with my family. I thought I would use my alone time to get some work done. But if you’re too busy right now, I guess I could find other things to do. My roommate, Steph, you’ve met her right? Yeah well, she’s going home for the holidays, so I’ll be alone in my dorm room. Maybe I’ll binge watch an entire series…” I trailed off and looked down.

  “You’ll be alone?”

  Bingo.

  “Yeah, I was hoping to distract myself by applying for my future, but if you don’t have time right now, then I’ll just have to figure something else out,” I replied, keeping my voice quiet.

  “No, no, that’s okay. I’m sure I can quickly type something up. Actually, I’m really glad you stopped by, I need to talk to you about that article you wrote,” she stated as she put her hand out for my laptop, which I turned on and handed over to her.

  I smiled as I looked at her, but the look she was giving back to me was decidedly not happy. Pity maybe? Definitely disappointed. And maybe, a touch of hurt? My stomach started to sink as she started to type away at my laptop. I sat there, politely waiting for the reference I needed, holding onto my smile as it stretched and strained under the tension that was building within me with every key stroke.

  It felt like hours instead of minutes had passed while I sat in my seat. My natural aversion to confrontation, especially from an authority figure and someone I respected, about a piece of my own personal work, slowly ate away all of my confidence. Tears burned the back of my throat and sweat formed on the palms of my hands, yet I was unable to move, paralyzed by my fear.

  I sat there, telling myself I wouldn’t cry, that I was going to continuously have these conversations when I went to New York, that it would be a daily occurrence, and I wouldn’t be able to cry at each of those. No one would take me seriously. I needed a thicker skin. Even if I’d disappointed one of my biggest supporters.

  Nausea just started to bubble around in the pit of my stomach when Professor Turner clicked save and closed my laptop before handing it back to me. My body reached forward accepting the laptop and slipped it back into my bag on the floor.

  I took a deep breath before I lifted my gaze back up to Professor Turner, not sure if I could handle the disappointed look again. She was looking directly at me, hands clasped together on her desk, posture almost perfectly correct.

  “Ha
yden, your hockey article, can you tell me how that came about?” Professor Turner asked as she continued to stare at me, unblinking, not letting me escape this moment.

  Before I could change my mind, I told her about Steph and her hockey player; I told her about my idea to go under cover and use the story to finalize my portfolio, about Vinnie, Justin, and Christian, and how I’d planned to use them for information and for entry into the Puck Games. I left out the Winter Wonderland; she didn’t need to know I’d being flirting with the line of professionalism. I told her about meeting Tori, about how the girls who participated viewed the games; I told her about finding the board. And finally, I revealed the part about seeing my name on it. I was passionate and empowered. My confidence climbed as I remembered everything. The reasons for why I’d written the story in the first place came rushing back to me. When I was done, I was breathing hard, my throat a little scratchy, but I was damn proud of my work, and I wasn’t going to let a little bit of disappointment from a mentor take that away from me. Writing was subjective.

  Silence filled the office for a few beats as she absorbed everything I had said.

  “To be honest, Hayden, it sounds like you attacked this for all of the right reasons, but in the end, you wrote it for the wrong reason. And that is what I found so disappointing with this whole situation. Especially now that you’ve told me that you got to hear from the other side of the issue, yet you only chose to write your side. The side that had wronged you. You didn’t write this article for all the women who have been wronged by an athlete. That may have been your message, but you really wrote that article because those three young men wronged you personally.”

  “Professor Turner, if you’re saying that I shouldn’t have written this article to protect those three hockey players, the whole hockey team in fact, then I –”

  She slashed her hand through the air, cutting me off. “That is not what I am saying, young lady! And don’t you dare imply that I believe athletes deserve preferential treatment, especially when it comes to the mistreatment of women. You know how I feel about that entire topic. If you’d sat here and explained to me that the article was a political piece and not a revenge write up, I would have said well done and sent you on your way. Instead, here we are, in a situation where you have sacrificed your integrity for your pride.” She huffed out a breath. “You completely ignored the other side of this story and wrote the side that best suited your aim, rather than keeping your eye on the broader issue and developing both sides. Investigative journalism isn’t just a way of exposing the underbelly of a terrible situation, it is also about having the ability to write unbiased humanitarian pieces, which this article had all the signs of being. However, you disregarded the other half, and for that I am truly sorry. Sorry for you, and sorry for the women that your story has maligned.” She shook her head at me; her eyes filled with sadness.

  My heart sank as her words flew at me like hail pelting from the sky. She was right; I had let my own feelings about my name appearing on the board without my consent cloud my judgement. I hadn’t written an unbiased article. Instead, I’d written something with passion, yeah, but also with vengeance in mind. I’d wanted them to pay, to feel the pain that I had felt. My head fell forward as I let my own disappointment at myself roll over my shoulders.

  “Did you know that I was crowned Puck Queen?”

  My head snapped up, eyes wide. “What? No, I didn’t know.” My voice came out breathy with shock. Professor Turner, a Puck Queen. No frickin’ way.

  “Yes, I was the last queen in the twentieth century, nineteen-ninety-nine. You couldn’t see it in the picture you took, since this particular board started in two-thousand,” she replied with a small smile, as she reached for a file on the corner of her desk and passed it to me.

  I took it from her as she continued talking.

  “I participated in my last year of college; the majority of my sorority did. We were a part of the wave of girls who started to change how the Puck Games worked.”

  I flicked open the folder and saw pictures of people with terrible haircuts and even worse fashion sense. The photos were of a party, everyone laughing and smiling for the camera, drinks in hand. About halfway through I came to a photo that made me pause. It was Professor Dianne Turner, before she was a professor, in a bikini with a silver tiara and wearing a silver sash that said QUEEN. She was dazzling; her smile so bright that her eyes sparkled.

  “Before us, the hockey players had taken whatever they wanted, using girls and discarding them the next day for a score on a board. We changed that. We went into the Games knowing what it was about; our eyes were wide open. We wanted to remove the power they had. So, we came up with a plan.”

  I held the photo of Professor Turner in my hand as I looked back up at her. She had a tiny smile playing at the corner of her mouth as she stared off at a point over my shoulder as she remembered.

  “Instead of letting them pick us, we would pick them. We would actively pursue them. We turned the games on their head and remove the choice from them. If they wanted to get a number on the board they had to work for it, not just get a quick lay on a Friday night from an unsuspecting girl.

  “We spread the word through the sororities, and to as many of the female services on campus as possible, so that female students were aware of the games. Yes, there were a few girls who slipped through the cracks and unintentionally ended up on the board, but we made sure we looked after them, supported them if they needed it. We claimed the power of the Puck Games.”

  I could see that; I really could. A young Dianne Turner leading the way on a secret movement to steal the male centric Puck Games from the hockey team and claim it as a women’s movement. It would have been the starting point in her life that led her to become the manager of a woman’s shelter and a prominent women’s rights activist.

  And I only felt more ashamed.

  I had tainted her work, her movement that was more than twenty years old. Instead of hearing what Tori had said, I had only listened to the parts I’d needed to move forward with my article. I had sacrificed my own integrity to shame my hockey players.

  Not that they were mine any more.

  “Hayden, don’t beat yourself up over this, take it as a lesson learned. You’re an excellent journalist, and I genuinely believe that you will make a name for yourself in New York like you have always wanted. I just wanted to talk to you about all of this.” Professor Turner seemed to lose her mantel of mentor, switching lanes easily by leaning back in her chair and softening her eyes. “Now, about The Press’ funding being cut. I received an email about that after you had already been informed, and I am so sorry about that. I should have been the one to tell you. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I will figure this out and get back to you. We’ll find a way to get you your website back.”

  I tried to smile in understanding, but my guilt was still trying to drown me. “Thank you, Professor Turner,” I said as I reached for my bag. As I stood, I went to place the folder down on her desk.

  “That’s okay Hayden, you keep that. Use it to remind yourself to be true to your integrity, to be the best journalistic version of yourself.”

  I nodded, clutching the folder to my chest as I left her office.

  40

  Hayden

  Friday 22nd December – 3 days until Christmas

  There was a knock on the Winter Wonderland Committee room door before it was opened. I quickly stood up from where I had been sitting, nervously checking that I had put everything in the right order. I wasn’t exactly sure why I was so nervous, I’d spoken to Elizabeth numerous times over the past few weeks. She’d thanked me more than once for pulling off the Winter Wonderland under such short notice. It was probably something about feeling like it was my only true accomplishment in recent weeks.

  “Hayden!” she exclaimed as she came through the door, rushing over to give me a hug.

  I quickly opened my arms, a little bit surprised at her enthusiastic greeting, b
ut I just rolled with it, giving her a squeeze back.

  “Hi, it’s so nice to finally meet you!” I said as we pulled apart.

  “I know, right? Thank you so much for everything you did. The photos were amazing, and some of my friends sent me videos. Everything was totally perfect and exactly the way I imagined it. I couldn’t have done a better job myself!” Elizabeth replied excitedly; her infectious personality bubbled out all over the place. She stepped over to the table and started flicking through the things I had left out. “Is this all of the paperwork that’s left for me to complete?”

  “Ah, yeah that’s all of it,” I said nervously as I stepped up next to her. “I put all of the unpaid invoices at the front, and then marked notes on the other ones where we paid but things weren’t quite right on the night. I wasn’t sure if you would want to do something about refunds or not.”

  “No, that’s perfect thank you –” A deep cough came from behind us, cutting Elizabeth off.

  We both swiveled around to stare at the additional person, who was an incredibly large guy. I actually had to tilt my head back a little to look him in the eyes. He wasn’t quite as big as Justin, but he was still huge. Dark brown hair cut short but was curling at the ends, with light brown eyes and a bemused expression on his face. He looked kind of familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  A cute laugh escaped Elizabeth. “Sorry baby. Hayden, this is my boyfriend, Grant. Grant this is Hayden. She finished off the Winter Wonderland for me while I was in hospital. You remember, right? I told you about her.”

  I watched Grant as confusion clouded his eyes; his brow furrowed. He searched my face for a few seconds before… something lit his eyes. Whatever it was disappeared quickly as a smile replaced it, and he held out his hand.