Phil
* * *
“Hey Phil,” Ben called me at work. “You’re coming to our Christmas party tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, for sure. Been looking forward to it.” These days, Ben used only “we” and “our” pronouns. The guy was totally hooked on April.
“I’m sure you could use a break from those crazy hours you’ve been working.”
“It’s getting better these days. Now that the project is actually up, it’s not as hectic.”
“I wanted to give you a heads-up. Kelly is going to be at the party.”
“Kelly? What’s she doing in town?”
“She came home to see her family. I assume you’re bringing Emily, right?”
“Of course.” I’d been dating Emily Campbell for a couple of months now. She was a great woman that I’d met at a party. Emily was a lawyer and she was extremely busy too, so my long hours never bothered her.
“I’m sure it’s not going to be a big deal for you, but I figured that knowing ahead of time couldn’t hurt.”
“Yeah, it’s nothing. See you tomorrow.”
But it was something. It was funny to even hear her name. Once Kelly left, it was like she dropped off the face of the earth. She wasn’t a person to update Facebook much, but when her profile disappeared I wondered if she had blocked me. Then April told me that some crazy online stalking had happened when young fangirls learned that Kelly was dating Frechette, and Kelly had removed all her public profiles. If you searched for her, it was like she didn’t exist except for her McGill hockey stuff. So short of asking Ben or April for updates, I had no way of knowing what she was up to.
But that was probably better. It was up to my overactive imagination to visualize the two of them cruising through a gilded life in Chicago. I tried hard not to think about the nights, about Kelly’s athletic body and her goofy enthusiasm for sex. The days were worse though, imagining Kelly’s happy presence lighting up someone else’s life. I only hoped that Frechette was treating her properly and not taking her for granted, like he did before.
Emily had to work late, so it was nearly 9:00pm when I got to her place to pick her up.
“All set?” I asked her.
“Yes. As long as I haven’t forgotten anything, like an earring.” She looked in the mirror. She had both silver hoops on, as well as a fitted black dress, sheer stockings, and shiny heels. Her dark hair was smoothly done up. As always, Emily looked beautiful and elegant.
She gave me a kiss and then whispered, “Oops. I did forget one thing—to wear panties. Wanted to give you something to think about if the party is boring.”
Well, that was hot. We cruised over to Ben’s townhouse. The place was hopping already. My eyes searched the crowd, and I finally saw Kelly’s back. She was talking to Charmaine. Her hands were motioning and the tilt of her head, her straight posture, and her dark hair were all so familiar. Her presence triggered an ache deep inside me—of need and longing.
“I’m going to hunt down drinks and something to eat,” Emily declared and off she went. I found myself moving almost involuntarily towards Kelly.
Charmaine saw me first, and she smiled. “Hello, Phil.”
Kelly turned around and gave me a tentative smile. I smiled back at first, but when I got a good look at her, I felt shocked.
She looked so different. She had definitely lost a little weight. But it was more that she had this artificial gleam that was completely foreign to her. Her nails were manicured and polished, her hair was slick with no little tendrils escaping, and her face was completely made-up. She was wearing a pale, glittery dress, long diamond earrings, and even low heels.
There was no denying that she looked sexy. In fact, she looked like the kind of woman that most guys would drool over. But she didn’t look like Kelly; she looked like an NHL girlfriend. That only made me hate the asshole more. Why not choose someone who was already a fake beauty and leave the natural Kelly for guys who appreciated her?
She had seen the shock on my face and frowned.
“Hey, Phil. How is everything?” Her voice was cool and formal.
“Good. How is life in Chicago?”
“Fine. The team is doing really well. They have a five-game winning streak going on—six if they beat the Flames tonight.” How like Kelly to talk only about hockey and not about any of the real things I wanted to know.
Well, I could be equally casual. “Yeah, they play the Canucks tomorrow, right? I guess you’re going to that game.”
“Definitely. How is your job?”
“It’s good. Not quite as busy as it was in the summer.” When I was too busy to see you enough and nothing had gone as it should have.
“You missed the big announcement, Phil,” Charmaine said. “Ben and April are engaged.”
“That’s great.” It wasn’t a huge surprise.
Then Emily appeared beside me. “Here’s your drink, babe.” She handed me a beer. I introduced everyone, and Emily made friendly small talk with Charmaine and Kelly. As they were talking, I watched Kelly carefully. There was this moment when her face relaxed and her expression changed completely. It was only a glimpse, but she looked strained and trapped. That was why she looked so artificial, instead of her natural expressiveness: her face was a controlled mask. The anger that I held in for so long began to melt, and I felt worried and protective. I knew he would hurt her. I knew he could never appreciate her fully.
“Phil?” Emily touched my shoulder, and I realized she had been asking me something.
“Sorry. What did you say?”
“Charmaine was telling me that there’s a whole buffet table set up in the dining room. Since neither of us have had dinner yet, did you want to check that out?”
“Oh sure.” I couldn’t keep standing here and mooning over Kelly. She wasn’t my responsibility anymore. She was an adult, and she had made her choices.
“Bye, Charmaine. Nice to see you again, Kelly.” She smiled back at me, the beautiful front firmly in place.
Emily and I loaded up our plates and found a couple of empty chairs where we could eat comfortably.
“This is delicious,” Emily declared. “I love the mix of Chinese and Western food.”
“Yeah, it’s great. Ben’s always been into good food.”
We ate in silence. I couldn’t stop thinking about the changes in Kelly.
“So, are you going to tell me about her, or do I have to start the cross-examination?”
When I looked up, Emily was smiling at me with her head cocked.
“I hate dating a lawyer. You’re too perceptive.”
“It’s part of my job to be able to read people.”
This was not my favourite topic. “I dated Kelly before. It’s not a big deal, but things didn’t end on the best note.”
Emily looked like she wanted to ask a lot more questions, but she realized it wasn’t the right setting and I looked less than receptive. I tried to relax and have a good time, but Kelly’s presence in the room was making things difficult. If I tried to talk to her again that would bother Emily. So I stayed away. Yet, my eyes kept searching for Kelly—she was a sparkling, solitary figure in a packed room.
Kelly had always been independent and would have hated to be considered a damsel in distress. But I couldn’t shake the idea that she needed to be rescued.
* * *
I was going back to my parents’ place for Christmas. Our office was closing for three days, so I could completely relax and kick back. On the 24th, I drove Emily to catch a floatplane back to Victoria where she was spending a week with her family.
I pulled her bag from the trunk and set it on the pavement. When I turned around, Emily handed me a silver wrapped package. “Here, Phil. Don’t open this until Christmas.”
“Got a little something for you too.” I pulled out a slim box that the jeweller had wrapped for me. It was a sterling silver chain with charms on it, one of them was a tiny gavel so I thought Emily would like that.
&
nbsp; “How sweet of you. Thanks, Phil.” She went up on tiptoe and kissed me. She kept her arms around my neck. “I’m going to miss you—especially on New Year’s Eve. What are you doing that night?”
“Going out with Ben and a few friends. I think they’re renting a private karaoke room.” I rolled my eyes, but I figured I’d enjoy it. I was a decent singer, but karaoke was mainly about drinking.
She laughed. “Saved. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.”
Emily gave me a more passionate kiss this time and then kissed my ear. “Merry Christmas, babe,” she whispered. “I love you.”
She walked away without giving me a chance to answer. Her wheeled bag made a loud gravel noise that slowly faded away.
The L-word. That usually meant decision time in a relationship. A week ago, I felt pretty good about everything with Emily. But right now, I was confused.
At home, Christmas Eve was a little different. My parents usually hosted an open house, but my mother had decreed that she wasn’t up to doing one this year. Instead we followed the German traditions of a big dinner, then going to church, and later opening all our gifts. Lying back in my old bed, I looked up at the ceiling and tried to figure out if it was rich food or worrying that was keeping me awake. I ended up going downstairs to watch TV or game a little.
Ray was already there, playing GTA IV.
“Want to play, little bro?” He threw me a controller and switched games. He switched to NHL ’08, unfortunately. I didn’t mind playing it, but I was always conscious of the fact that one of the options was to play as James Frechette. This felt like he was intruding into my life more then he had already.
“You still play hockey?” Ray wondered.
“Yeah, I’m on a team with Hoff. It’s pretty casual.”
“Is Kelly on the team too?” Ray was clueless about my life since he lived in Kelowna now. He and Helena had driven down for the holidays. Even though they lived together, my mom had put her in the guest room.
“She moved away. I don’t see her anymore.”
“Oh.” He didn’t say anything else, but his curiosity hung almost visibly in the room. Finally, he tried again. “You guys were getting along great when we saw you at the anniversary shindig.”
“That was months ago. Shit happens.”
He smirked. “She broke up with you. That’s a first.”
“No, I broke up with her.”
“Why are you so bugged about it then?”
“I’m not. I have a new girlfriend now, and everything’s fine.”
“I hate to be the one to break it to you, little bro, but you are not fine.”
“What are you talking about?”
Ray paused the game. “You’re irritable and quiet. Everyone in the family can tell something is bothering you. Mom even asked me about it.”
“She never asked me.” Our mother was nothing if not nosey.
“She said she did a couple of months ago, and you responded by not coming over any more.”
I didn’t even remember that. “I’m really busy at work. That probably makes me more stressed.”
There was a long silence, and I thought about going back to bed. I still wasn’t tired, but this conversation was hardly relaxing.
“I’m here if you need to talk about anything. You know I won’t tell Mom and Dad.” That was true. There were more than a few secrets we’d kept so we wouldn’t get in trouble.
There was nobody in my life I could talk to about Kelly. Hoff wouldn’t understand, and Ben would tell April right away. It still bothered me that we had split. I had tried not to think about her, and I thought I’d successfully moved on. Apparently my mother would not have agreed.
When I saw Kelly, my perspective had shifted. I thought from the beginning that she would get hurt, yet I could not believe all the changes in her. I was one of the few people who would be able to see through that glossy exterior. Once, I had seen a nature show about animal trapping, and she reminded me of this captured fox with bewildered, desperate eyes.
“It’s Kelly,” I confessed to Ray. “I saw her last week, and she looked so—” Well, I didn’t know how to describe how she looked. Any guy who saw her would think she looked hot. But she didn’t look like herself. I realized I’d have to tell Ray everything to explain my worries.
I briefly told him about the dating game and how it had played out. “So, I broke up with her. It’s not that I felt she would have chosen me if I hadn’t—but whatever. Anyway, now that I’ve seen her, I’m really worried. I feel like I sentenced her to this fake life, and it’s eating away at her. It’s stupid, I know. She made all the choices, and it’s not like she’s in prison. She could leave.”
Ray didn’t say anything for a while, and then what he said made no sense. “You’re way more talented than I am at everything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re a better swimmer, a better hockey player, a better musician.”
“C’mon. You were an Olympic alternate, and I wasn’t even the top guy at swim club.”
“Because you didn’t try to be. I envied you. You seemed to have everything figured out. You did what you wanted, but you never wanted too much. You could have played rep hockey, but you decided to do soccer instead, plus swimming. You drove Mom crazy, because you never focused on being really good at anything. But you did everything well, and never seemed to give a shit.”
He paused, and his smile was more of a leer. “And when it came to girls, you had to fight them off. You never seemed to care too much about any girl, and that made them all want you more. There was only one time you had to work to get a girl.”
“Kelly.”
“Yup. I couldn’t see it myself. She was a little butch for me. But you were really happy with her.”
I sighed. “Yeah. Those times were the best. I never thought in a million years she’d pick him.”
“You chickened out too. You should have gone balls out to win her when you had the chance.”
“I did.” I had done as much as I could. Unlike the asshole, I had to work, so I couldn’t be courting her 24/7.
“Bullshit,” Ray declared. “That’s your problem.”
I thought about that. Maybe it was true. If I hadn’t tried my hardest, there always remained this possibility that in an alternative universe we would have been together.
“I guess I’m afraid of failing.”
“We all are, little bro. But you can take it from me—failing is not the worst thing. Not trying and not knowing if you could have done it is way worse.”
Exactly. And that was why I was so bothered by seeing Kelly at Ben’s party, because I felt like I could have saved her from the trap. If I had tried my hardest, she would be with me where she belonged. And she’d be happy.
But who was I to judge? Maybe she was happy. I’d barely spoken to her and my impressions were only based on a few minutes together. Fuck, was I rationalizing again?
“I know it’s ridiculous since we’ve both moved on, but I feel like I want to do something. Is it too late for Kelly and me?”
Ray shook his head. “I don’t know. Why don’t you see her? You guys could at least talk.”
“She’s gone already. She’s spending Christmas with him.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t know then. You’re the one who knows her best.”
I thought long and hard about it. I guess what I really regretted was that we had broken up in a way that precluded us talking again. And I didn’t feel like I could call her up and talk, even if I could get the number from April.
Finally, I decided that I should send her a little peace offering. If we opened up our channels of communication, at least I’d have the reassurance of knowing that she could call me if she wanted. Since I was at home with all my music stuff, I recorded a mix tape with five songs on it. I burned a CD and wrapped it in Christmas paper with a note. And then I had to figure out a way to deliver it. When I saw April and Ben at New Year’s Eve, I cornered her fo
r a private moment away from the karaoke screen.
“I have a Christmas present for Kelly. Could I get her address so I can mail it to her?”
April gave me a withering look. “I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to mail explosives to the United States.”
“C’mon. It’s not a bomb.”
“Well, anthrax is not allowed either.”
“It’s a mix tape. Now can I have her address?”
She still wasn’t buying this. “When you saw her at Ben’s party, I’m pretty sure you guys only spoke for five seconds. And hello, does the name Emily ring a bell? What is really going on here?”
“Weren’t you worried about Kelly when you saw her? She looks so artificial—and unhappy.”
Finally I seemed to have gotten through to April. She nodded. “That’s what I thought too. But Karen thought she looked great. And Kelly said she was fine, even when I probed her on the subject. She’s changed for sure, but is she unhappy?”
“Her parents have left the country, so now we’re the ones who know her best. I’m worried that she’s too isolated out there. So, all I want to do is let her know that she can still count on me—if she wants to talk, or anything.”
April snorted. “Like swoop in and rescue her from her million-dollar condo?”
“I can only do that if you give me the address.”
She thought this over. “Are you still going out with Emily? Who I like, by the way.”
I nodded. “I’m not trying to get back with Kelly. I feel guilty about the way things ended and now I—” I realized I was lying to myself. If I really wanted to change, I’d have to open myself up to the truth, regardless of how vulnerable it made me look. “No, that’s bullshit. I would take her back in a millisecond if she showed up. I am so fucked.”
I cared a lot about Emily, and maybe if Kelly had shown up glowing with happiness, none of this would have happened. But she hadn’t, and that set up a series of emotional dominos.
April gave me a look that was either sympathy or pity. “Bring me the present, I’ll mail it to Kelly. She forgot a scarf at my place anyway, and I’ll send her a Christmas gift too. I don’t know if she would want you to have her address or not, but I agree—she needs friends who have nothing to do with James.”
Hockey Is My Boyfriend: Part Three Page 35
