Delay of Game

by Tracey Richardson

  Seeing her hurt instantly sent Niki back to the gold medal game in Nagano, where an innocent open-ice collision between the two of them had left Eva with a torn knee. She’d felt sick about it, especially when Eva, her face contorted in pain, shot Niki a look of pure hatred and unadulterated blame. You did this to me on purpose, her black eyes had said. Of course Niki hadn’t, but she’d done nothing over the years to dispel Eva’s belief, to try to explain. When you played hockey at this level, you didn’t apologize for playing hard. They both understood that.

  “Aw, fuck,” Niki mumbled, and not only because of the five-minute major penalty posted on the clock, but because Eva still hadn’t moved much, though she was at least sitting up. Her trainer—the same woman she’d been pawing at the restaurant last night—bent over her, placed a hand on her shoulder, talked to her, touched her knee with her other hand.

  Niki clenched her fists behind her back, her chest tightening. She wasn’t petty or mean and didn’t condone rough stuff on the ice. She wanted Eva to be okay. Didn’t want her scoring goals against her team either, though, and didn’t want her beating them for Olympic gold, but she did want her to finish out her playing career on her own terms, same as she herself had done after the Nagano Olympics. Any injuries sustained now, with three-and-half-months to go, would be disastrous for any player. Especially a thirty-six-year-old in the twilight of her career and who already had a bum knee.

  She stole a glance at Lynn, who had a self-satisfied smile pasted onto her face. With it came the sick realization that the hit on Eva had been intentional, meant to take her out of the game or at least to teach her a lesson. And Lynn, judging by the glee on her face, had given the order.

  Goddammit! Lynn knew that type of play was forbidden on Niki’s watch. Her ire wasn’t because it was Eva who’d gotten hurt; she didn’t want her players gooning anybody. She wanted them executing the game plan. Wanted them executing the game plan with emotionless precision—machinists building a win one piece at a time. The minute you got sucked into a gong show, you were finished.

  Eva finally limped off the ice with the trainer’s assistance and headed straight to the locker room. Niki paced, successfully fighting the urge to go check on her. It wouldn’t do for the coach to leave the bench to check on an opposing player. She watched the rest of the game play out, a 4-1 loss for her team, then briskly followed her players into the locker room.

  “That,” she said in her harshest tone, “was an embarrassment. We let them dictate the pace. We let them do whatever they wanted. We rolled over and let them have their way with us. Our positional play was terrible, and worst of all, we didn’t want to win bad enough. When we started losing, we let ourselves become totally unglued.” She drilled her eyes into the defenseman who’d taken Eva out. “And then we get a major penalty for taking out their best player? What kind of beer league bullshit is that?”

  Lynn cleared her throat and looked away. Niki would deal with her later.

  “This had better be the only time we lose to this team this winter.” Niki settled her gaze on each player in turn. “Trust me. Losing to the Americans can become a habit if you let it. A very bad habit. If any of you aren’t up to the task of beating them, then I’ll gladly show you the door. The decision is yours, women. This is a team of champions, not failures, and the sooner you figure that out, the better.”

  She didn’t enjoy being a hard ass, but sometimes it was the only way. She let her message settle like ashes after a blistering fire, then turned on her heel and strode out. Lynn followed her like a lost dog.

  Sharply, Niki said to her, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Eva winced at the pain in her knee. It felt like the blade of a serrated knife had been jammed in there. She’d had an X-ray, but the results would be a few more minutes. The ER doctor’s simple manipulations sent her memory hurtling back to her previous ligament replacement surgery and the many arthroscopic missions before that and the despair that always accompanied the procedures for days and sometimes weeks afterward. Every time she got hurt she worried her career was done.

  “I suggest you have an MRI when you get back to Minnesota, but I strongly suspect it’s only a sprain.” The doctor, a woman about Eva’s age, offered an encouraging smile. But no simple gesture was going to keep Eva from feeling that her Olympic dreams were being flattened like a penny on a train track right now.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes with your test results,” the doctor said, giving Eva a reassuring wink on her way out that did nothing to reassure her at all.

  “I think she’s probably right,” Kathleen said. “A month or so off hockey, some physio, and you should be fine. But we’ll set you up with an MRI when we get home to be sure.”

  Eva wanted to cry but wouldn’t give her lousy knee the satisfaction. “I’m so fucking sick of my body not being able to keep up with hockey, Kath. Is it too much to ask for a few more months before it craps out completely?”

  “To be honest, it was kind of a dirty play. Number fourteen boarded you, and your knee got sandwiched in between her and the boards.”

  “Ten years ago, hell, six years ago, I would never have been injured on that play. It pisses me off.”

  “I know.” Kathleen patted her thigh. “We’ll get you through the Olympics, even if I have to use glue and duct tape on that body of yours.”

  There was a faint knock on the treatment room door before it opened. Niki stepped in. The shock of seeing her sent another ripple of pain coursing through Eva’s knee.

  “How are you doing?” Niki said after a nervous clearing of her throat. She displayed none of the ill temper and judgment she’d shown at the outdoor rink this morning. This time, her eyes bore only concern. Maybe even contrition.

  “I’ll live.” Eva failed to keep the sarcasm from her voice.

  “Is it your bad knee?”

  “No. My good one. I don’t know if that’s lucky or unlucky. Now I get to have two bad knees.”

  Kathleen, who’d been studying the two of them like they were part of a science project, made a hasty excuse and left the room.

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay. And to say…to say I’m concerned about what happened. And I’ll deal with it.”

  “Concerned about me or concerned about your player’s actions?”

  “Both.” Niki stood stiffly, ignoring the chair near the treatment bed, clearly signaling that she wouldn’t be staying long. But she was here, and what that meant, Eva couldn’t guess.

  “Well, no need to worry about me.” Inside, Eva was nowhere near as casual as her words, but she didn’t want Niki’s sympathy. Or pity. “They say it’s likely a sprain. I should be good as new in a month. Six weeks at the outside, I suppose.”

  Niki was polite enough to look relieved. “Good. So you’ll be able to play in Vancouver.”

  “Come on,” Eva said, a fist of anger clamping around her windpipe that caused her voice to sound like gravel under tires. “You don’t want me playing in any gold medal game, especially if it’s against your team, which we all know it will be.”

  “No, that’s not true, Eva. I know what these Games mean to you. And I think I have an idea of what you sacrificed to be here.”

  Eva’s anger left her as quickly as it had come on. Niki was the one making all the sacrifices to go to the Olympics—she had a kid she’d left behind, while Eva had simply locked up her condo and her business in Traverse City until she returned.

  “Your daughter. How old is she?”

  Niki blinked at the question before a smile edged onto her lips. “Rory’s ten. But of course if you ask her she’ll say she’s almost eleven.”

  “Does she like hockey?”

  “Loves it.”

  The unguarded joy in Niki’s face reminded Eva of the way she’d looked at her on their second date. Eva was a college freshman then, Niki a sophomore when they’d gone to an outdoor blues concert together. The autumnal evening air had been so bitingly cold
that they both huddled beneath Eva’s oversized jacket, clutching one another as if each were the other’s life raft. The rain, icy and stinging, came at the end of the evening, and they ran to the bus shelter together, still holding onto one another, the soggy jacket held aloft over their heads. They went back to Eva’s apartment and made love for the first time, Niki’s skin so warm beneath the flannel sheets, it was like she was on fire every time Eva touched her. It was, Eva had long ago decided, the happiest night of her life.

  She swallowed, her heart thumping at the memory. The sight of Niki now was no less heart-rending. “I’m glad you stopped by, Nik. It means a lot.”

  “I also wanted to say…I’m sorry.”

  “About my knee?”

  “Well, that too. But I meant about earlier today. At the outdoor rink. I was out of line.”

  Niki’s outburst had been a little shocking, but Eva had been secretly cherishing it in a little corner of her heart. Niki’s jealousy of Kathleen was a guilty pleasure because Eva wanted, she realized, for Niki to still feel something for her. The opposite of love wasn’t hate, someone once told her, but indifference. And indifference from Niki was the worst. “About that—”

  “No, it’s okay. No need to talk about it further.” She pointed to Eva’s knee. “You take care of that.” She backed toward the door exactly at the moment the doctor entered, and the two women nearly collided.

  Wait, Eva wanted to cry out. I do want to talk about it further. I want us to talk about what happened all those years ago, to talk about why we gave up so easily. There was also the morass of feelings that kept tripping them up, making them both act a little crazy lately. They should talk about that too and about how they were going to handle regularly running into each other now.

  “I’ll be seeing you around,” Niki said, and she was gone before Eva could say anything to stop her.

  “Good news,” the doctor said, holding a sheaf of X-rays in her hand. She marched over to a light box on the wall and flicked it on.

  Chapter Eight

  Faceoff

  Niki took another sip of her coffee, but it did little to boost her energy. She’d slept like shit last night. It was losing to the Americans, it was seeing Eva hurt and in the hospital. And then, she’d realized halfway through the night, today was Shannon’s birthday. Or would have been.

  These days she felt even more adrift from Shannon. Or her memory, to be more precise. She was far away from their home, from Rory, from all the familiar places. And then there was the reemergence of Eva in her life. So many changes lately, which, in her judgment, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing because it might finally force her to move on, the way everyone told her she needed to. The problem was that she wasn’t yet committed to moving on. Shannon had been her rock—safe, predictable, dependable. Not a pushover, but calm, laid-back, always took a minute or two to answer a question while she thought it over, rarely overreacted to anything. Yet if Niki were honest with herself, there were times she wished Shannon had been more spontaneous, more expressive, less independent, less introspective. She’d shared so little sometimes of her true feelings and had accepted her cancer diagnosis with a resignation that infuriated Niki. Shannon had been a quiet fighter and not the ballsy, take-no-prisoners combatant Niki was used to in the world of high-octane sports. Too often it had left her angry, afraid that Shannon wasn’t trying hard enough to beat the cancer.

  She glanced at the framed photo on her desk of herself, Shannon and Rory posing before Niagara Falls on a family vacation. They looked happy, they always did, everyone said so. The perfect couple. But they hadn’t been the perfect couple. Shannon kept so much to herself, and Niki overcompensated with her smothering, expressive instincts. She was constantly attempting to hug and kiss Shannon, crushing her with physical affection. It was her insecure need to prove to herself that Shannon loved her and that she loved Shannon, she realized later—too late. Without the lightning rod of passion in their lives, Niki was sometimes unsure about the depth of their love. But never had she verbalized her feelings to anyone, including her wife.

  A knock interrupted her brooding and Lynn edged into her office, looking like she too hadn’t slept well.

  “Come in,” Niki said. “Coffee’s on if you want any.”

  “Thanks but I’ve already had a pail of it this morning.” She took a seat across from Niki’s desk.

  “About the game last night.” Niki captured Lynn’s eyes and wouldn’t let them go. “Did you ask or order Samantha to take Eva out of the game?”

  Lynn’s nostrils flared in a quiet show of defiance. “Of course not.”

  “I’m asking because I saw you huddled with her on the bench before that play.”

  “I told her to close down the lanes, to not let anyone by her, especially Eva. But I did not tell her to take her out.”

  Niki had already talked privately with her defenseman. Samantha was evasive about the episode and admitted there’d been no intention to injure Eva or anyone else.

  Niki sighed. Without evidence to the contrary, she had no alternative but to accept the two women’s explanations. “All right. But we’ve got to find a way to make sure our players maintain their discipline. I’m going to bench Samantha for our next game. Show her that she won’t get ice time if she doesn’t play disciplined hockey.”

  “It’ll leave our D corps a bit short.”

  “I don’t care. We’ll manage. We’ll move Stanners from forward to D if we have to.”

  Lynn cleared her throat, glanced away for a moment. “I heard you visited Eva in the hospital after the game.”

  There was something about Lynn lately—the mounting pressure of the approaching Games, perhaps—that Niki didn’t care for. With every passing week, her assistant coach seemed more stressed, more competitive, more cynical, less cooperative. “How did you hear that?”

  “Word travels, that’s all. It gives me concern.”

  “About what? That I’m consorting with the enemy? Look. I know I asked you to keep an eye on Alison Hiller, but please tell me you’re not becoming Alison Hiller.” Niki rubbed her throbbing temples. “Can’t we act nice and coach this team to victory too?”

  “I don’t know,” Lynn said, her face and shoulders collapsing a little. “You’re right. Alison’s a first-class idiot. And if you want to be friends with Eva, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. I know you’re a professional, Nik.”

  “Whoa. Who said Eva and I are friends?”

  Lynn smiled without pleasure. “You were lovers, after all. And you’re both single, or at least, I don’t think she’s involved seriously with that athletic therapist. As long as you kept things discreet, of course, and kept the two things apart, I don’t really see a problem.”

  Lynn’s about-face was another example of her erratic behavior lately. She was up, down, quiet one minute, unable to contain herself the next. “C’mon. That’s not going to happen. Eva and I are barely civil toward one another.” That wasn’t exactly true. They weren’t lions circling each other in a cage anymore, but they were not friends.

  “You sure about that?” Lynn’s smile dissolved. “You were pretty upset last night when Eva got hurt.”

  “I was. But I was upset about our lack of discipline.”

  Lynn stared at her for a long moment, everything about her suggesting she didn’t believe Niki.

  “There’s nothing between Eva and me except for ancient history.” Niki pulled a three-ring notebook from her desk drawer and laid it on the desk. “Let’s go over the game last night. I made a lot of notes this morning.”

  She flipped open the book, her mind wandering to Eva. Dammit, Lynn was trying to make her feel guilty about Eva, and it was working. Was she caring more about her ex than she should? Was the ice around her heart cracking a little? No, she thought, I don’t have time for this. She forced her attention back to her notes and to the task at hand. If she didn’t quickly find a way to reverse her team’s fortunes against the Americans, it was going to be a
damned slippery slope ahead of them.

  * * *

  Eva set the barbell on the rack and sat up. Sweat dripped along her temples and streamed down her neck and chest. The knee sprain was keeping her from most of her lower body workout, but she could and did work on her upper body. Battles along the boards and in the zone in front of the goal crease required her to keep her core and upper body strong. It didn’t often come through on television, but the contact in women’s hockey was almost as prevalent as it was in men’s. A well-timed shoulder could send a player flying, there were endless scrums along the boards, there were whacks and hacks and hard shoving in front of the net. If you weren’t strong, you were on your ass and out of the play.

  Kathleen handed her a bottle of water. “You’re pushing it pretty hard today. What do you say we finish up with a swim and a sauna?”

  “In a while. I want to work on my abs next.”

  “It won’t get you back on the ice sooner.”

  Eva toweled the sweat from her neck. She wouldn’t be game ready for at least three more weeks and would miss the two exhibition games in Toronto in a couple of weeks. Team USA and Team Canada would each play a team of Canadian university all-stars before facing each other in a one-off. It was like a mini-tournament that would take place from Friday through Sunday. Eva would accompany her team and practice as best she could, but she wouldn’t play. She’d be in the stands and would watch all the games and prepare a report on what she observed. It sucked and was no replacement for playing; she’d never aspired to be a coach or a scout. She’d never forgotten the old saying that people who couldn’t play, coached. It didn’t apply to Niki, however, so maybe it was just bullshit. Still…

  “Kath, to be honest, I’m worried. What if I’m done? What if I can’t get my knees back to where they need to be in time?”

  “C’mon, don’t start doubting now. They’ll get you through.”