Light the Lamp

by Catherine Gayle

  “Yeah, thanks, Jim,” Jonny said.

  The doctors and trainers had piled into a waiting car, and Jim followed.

  Jonny and I headed inside the hotel, where Zee, Soupy, and a few other guys were hanging out in the lobby. We went over and joined them.

  “Do you think he took something?” I asked. I didn’t know Nicky well at all, but that seemed somewhat more plausible than someone slipping something into his drink.

  Zee’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Nicky? What the fuck would he take?” He shook his head. “No, he didn’t take anything.”

  We shot the breeze in the lobby for a while, trying to pass the time while we waited on word from Jim. I’d been expecting him to call, but instead he came back to the hotel himself.

  “They’ve pumped his stomach. He’s going to be okay, but the doctors are probably going to rule him out for a game or two while he recovers from this. They’re keeping him overnight for observation. We’ll know more tomorrow.”

  “Do they know what got put in his drink?” Soupy asked.

  “We don’t know that.” Jim loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. “We might not ever know. It isn’t what’s important right now. What matters is that he’s going to be okay. I’m calling it a night, boys. I’ve got to be up early so we can get someone in to backup for Hunter tomorrow.”

  “’Night, Jim,” several of the guys said. After a few minutes of idle chitchat, everyone wondering who would have drugged Nicky and why, guys started heading up to their rooms. When I got to mine, it was already after eleven. A lot more time had passed standing around waiting for news on Nicky than I’d expected. It was kind of late to call Noelle—she might already be in bed—so I settled on sending her a text.

  What did you do today? I miss you. Wish you were here with me. I love you, Noelle.

  I plugged my cell in to charge and turned on CNN while I got ready to settle in for the night. I’d changed clothes, washed my face, thought about shaving but decided not to, and climbed into bed, and she still hadn’t responded.

  It wasn’t something I should get too worked up over. She had always been more of a morning person than a night owl, at least in the time I’d known her. She was probably already asleep. I should be, too. I made sure the ringer on my phone was turned all the way up so I’d hear it if she called or texted me, and then I turned off the TV and flipped off the lights.

  Even though I hadn’t slept much the night before, it was hard to fall asleep. Between everything that had happened with Nicky at the bar tonight and the fact that I hadn’t heard a word from Noelle since I’d left her this morning—since she’d asked me not to hate her—my mind wouldn’t shut off. I lay there for hours trying to sleep before I finally got up and dug through my suitcase for an Ambien. The team psychologist had prescribed them for me after Liv had died, when I hadn’t been able to sleep. I didn’t like taking them. I didn’t want to get hooked. But some nights I would just lie in bed with my brain going a hundred miles an hour without them.

  That hadn’t happened in a long time. Not until tonight.

  When I got back into bed, I checked my cell phone again, just in case I’d been so caught up in my thoughts that I’d missed it. Still nothing. I kept the phone in my hand until I finally drifted off to sleep.

  I woke up to the alarm, immediately checking the phone as though it had been a text notification instead of a wake-up call. It was seven already. Surely she was up by now. I hit the speed dial button to call her, but instead of ringing, it went straight to her voice mail.

  Maybe she’d turned it off for the night? I hoped it was something like that and not that she’d neglected to keep it charged, or that she’d lost it, or that it had fallen down the toilet, or any of the thousand other scenarios that ran through my head.

  After the beep, I said, “Noelle? Call me later when you listen to this…maybe at lunch. I just need to hear your voice.” Then I disconnected the call, trying not to let myself worry. Worrying about it now wouldn’t do me or her any good. There was nothing I could do about anything from San Jose, and we wouldn’t be heading back to Portland for days. I forced myself to get up and shower so I could head down to the team breakfast before morning skate.

  Nicky was still in the hospital this morning, recovering from whatever drug he’d gotten into his system. Hunter knew he would be playing tonight, and he was ready for it, but we didn’t know who would be flying in from our minor league team to take his spot as the backup. Jim was working on getting someone in, but the Seattle Storm was in the midst of a road trip, as well, and they were on the east coast right now.

  That wasn’t anything we could control, though. I needed to be worrying about myself and making sure I was focused on the task at hand. My practice wasn’t quite as awful as the previous day. That wasn’t saying much, though.

  Mattias Bergstrom, one of the assistant coaches, skated up alongside me before I could leave the ice. “You need to forget about what happened out here this morning,” Bergy said. “And yesterday’s practice, too. Wipe them from your fucking mind so they don’t screw with you tonight.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean it, Kally. It’s all a fucking mind game with you, lately. The player you’ve been the last week or so is who you are. You’re better than this shit.” He whacked me on the back of my helmet with his hand, as if that could knock everything in my head back into its proper place. “I don’t know what’s going on that has you all fucked up again, but you’ve got to separate the stuff in your head from the way you play.”

  I cleaned up and headed to lunch with some of the guys, making sure my phone was out and ready for whenever Noelle called.

  She still hadn’t contacted me by the time we returned to the hotel for our pre-game naps.

  I must have looked as miserable as I felt because Babs caught up to me in the lobby on our way to the elevators. His nose was still taped up because of the break. He looked ridiculous. “I’m sure she’s fine,” he said. “You know how she is. She probably went for a walk and forgot to take it with her or something.”

  “Right.” I tried to laugh it off. Hell, she was always forgetting to put on shoes or take an umbrella with her, so it only made sense that she would have left the phone behind accidentally.

  Soupy, Zee, and Jonny got into the same elevator we did.

  “I can see if Rachel can swing by and check on her,” Soupy said, pulling out his cell phone and sending a text message.

  I just nodded because I didn’t trust my voice not to break down like the rest of me was.

  They all got off with me at my floor and followed me to my room. I didn’t really want to hang out with them, but I didn’t have it in me to tell them to scram. Once we were all in my room, I flopped down on my bed and pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger.

  Soupy’s cell beeped, and I shot up to a sitting position.

  “She’s swamped today with trying to make arrangements to get us a backup goalie before the game,” he said. “She won’t have time to get back to the condo until she gets the kids from their after-school program.”

  Zee had his phone out before I could process it all. “I bet Dana can run by.”

  I could deal with Rachel stopping by since she lived across the hall, but I really didn’t want anyone to go out of the way just because I was a fucked up mess. “That’s not nec—”

  “It is necessary,” Zee interrupted. “We need you to be able to focus on the game tonight, and you won’t be able to do that if you’re worried about your girl.”

  “He’s right,” Babs said. “If Dee can’t go, I bet Katie and her mom can.”

  “Or Sara Thomas, or one of the other coaches’ wives…” Jonny sat down in the roller chair beside the desk, idly cracking his knuckles. “We’ll get someone to go check on her.”

  I decided it wasn’t worth arguing about it anymore. Mainly because they were right in that I would rest a lot easier once I knew Noelle was all right, b
ut the fact that they were my teammates and this was the sort of thing that teammates do for one another wasn’t lost on me. This, more than anything else in my brief time playing for the Storm, made me feel like I belonged here.

  After a few text messages, Zee told me that Dana would drop by the condo midafternoon. She’d go sooner, but she had an appointment with a midget hockey team about potentially becoming their new coach next year.

  The guys hung out with me a little longer, but then they gradually left to rest up before the game tonight. I lay down on the bed once they were gone, but I couldn’t sleep. Like the night before, I couldn’t get my brain to turn off well enough for that, but I couldn’t take Ambien for a nap.

  Zee and Soupy were down in the hotel’s lobby when I finally gave up my poor attempt at resting, but they didn’t have good news for me.

  “Dana went by and knocked a few times, but there was no answer,” Zee said.

  “But that doesn’t mean anything,” Soupy was quick to add. “She might have been out, or taking a nap, or God only knows what. Rachel and the kids will keep an eye out for her and be sure she calls you.”

  “Yeah,” I said, but I knew that their efforts were all going to be in vain. Noelle had left. I knew it. I’d known from her reaction yesterday morning that she was planning to leave, and now she had done it. “Yeah, thanks, boys.”

  I backed away from them, making my way to the coffee shop next to the gift shop, hoping they wouldn’t see how bad I was shaking. “Just a large coffee,” I said to the barista. “Black.”

  It’ll put hair on your chest. The memory of the night I’d met her came crashing over me unbidden. Something told me that every little thing was going to make me think of Noelle for a while.

  Sean Roberts had always been better known to the boys here in Portland as Bobby, apparently. He was the goaltender who got called up from the farm team to play backup for Hunter for this game—maybe more, depending on Nicky’s health. They’d arranged for Bobby to get on a flight from Charlotte, where the Seattle Storm were getting ready to play a game against the Checkers, with a brief layover in Dallas. He should have gotten in to San Jose with an hour or more to spare before the opening face-off—enough time to get from the airport to the arena and get into his gear, even if only just enough.

  Should have being the key words in all of that.

  It turned out that the Dallas area was getting pelted with severe thunderstorms and potentially tornadoes, and hail the size of baseballs was dropping from the sky. Bobby’s first flight landed before all that really got going, but then he got stuck at DFW Airport for hours while they waited for the weather to clear out. By the time the team was loading onto the bus that would take us from the hotel to the arena, we knew he wasn’t going to arrive in time for the game.

  We hadn’t even pulled out from the hotel yet when Jim got on his phone and set to work finding someone who could fill in at the last minute. After who knows how many calls, the Storm ended up signing some guy named Nate Smith to a one-day try-out contract. Nate had played goal in college hockey and lived in the San Jose area. If all went according to plan, the only things he would be expected to do were dress in the appropriate gear and sit on the bench as the backup. He played in a beer league these days, and every now and then he would fill in for the Sharks’ goalies in practice when their guys needed a day off.

  Well, he was supposed to just have to sit on the bench. And it was looking like that was all he would have to do until the middle of the third period. We were up two to one, thanks to two goals from the Zee, Soupy, and Babs line. Hunter was doing everything he could to fend off a relentless attack from San Jose’s top forwards and doing an admirable job of it, considering he’d only learned this morning that he would be playing. The Sharks were cycling the puck down low when one of them took the puck behind the net and snuck in a pass to a teammate who was waiting just outside the blue paint.

  Hunter slid from one side of his crease to the other in a failed attempt to make a desperate save, and his ankle somehow twisted against the post in a way that looked really ugly. He shouted in pain, loud enough that we could hear him at the bench even with the goal horn sounding, so there was no doubt it felt as ugly as it looked. The trainers rushed out to help him, and after a minute he got up and tried to skate it off, but it was pretty clear to everyone in the building that he couldn’t put any weight on it at all.

  There was no chance he was going to stay in the game.

  Nate Smith’s eyes got as big as the baseball-sized hail coming down in Texas when he realized he was going to have to go in.

  I was the closest guy to him on the bench when all this was going down, and I could practically smell his fear. “You’ll be all right,” I said. The last thing we needed was for him to go into the net scared when we had a tie game with a divisional rival. We needed him to believe he could do this even if we didn’t think he could. Confidence can go a long way in this game. I chucked him on the shoulder, trying to get him out of his daze. “You’ve faced these guys in practice some. You know their moves and what kind of shots they like to take. You can do this.”

  He had to do this.

  The trainers were headed back toward the bench with Hunter propped between them so they could support his weight, in similar fashion to how Jonny and I had carried Nicky out of the bar last night. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Scotty heading in our direction, his face as red as I had ever seen, but Bergy stopped him and came in his place. That was probably good. It seemed like Scotty’s preferred method of talking to people was actually to scream at them, and I doubted that would help this kid out right now.

  “They take it easy on me in practice,” Nate said. He looked like he was about to shit his pants. “They won’t do that in a game.”

  “Probably not as easy as you think they do,” I lied. “You’ve got this.”

  Bergy pulled up behind me and slapped a hand on Nate’s shoulder. “This is it, kid. It’s your shot. Just get out there and give us the best you can.”

  Nate looked at me, wild-eyed, before nodding and heading out onto the ice to try to get in a quick stretch.

  “We stick to our game plan,” Scotty shouted down the bench so everyone could hear him. “Nothing changes just because of our goalie situation. I want five guys fucking working together in every fucking zone, and we need to get more traffic in front of their goddamn net.”

  “Let’s do this, boys,” Zee shouted. “We need to score some more and give Nate some breathing room.”

  “Everybody fucking helps out the D,” Jonny added. “No one gets caught watching.”

  The zebras skated over to get Scotty to send out his players. There’s no time-out in hockey when you have an injury replacement, not like in some other sports. Each team only gets a single thirty-second time-out per game, too, so it’s not like using that would get Nate more time to warm up.

  “RJ, Eller, Kally,” Scotty said. “Get out there and set the fucking tone.”

  The three of us jumped over the boards and lined up on the dot to Nate’s right. Keith Burns and Andrew Jensen, our top defensive pairing, joined us.

  I glanced behind me at Nate for a second but immediately wished I hadn’t. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a human being look so green. We’d be lucky if he didn’t puke all over us.

  I circled over to RJ, waved Eller over to join us, and held my glove up to my mouth so none of the Sharks players could read my lips. “Go forward with it. Get it out and as far away from Nate as you can. Eller or me, one of us will catch up to it so it isn’t icing.” The best defense, in this situation, was going to be a hell of a lot of offense. We had to get control of the puck and keep it in the other end as much as possible.

  RJ took a quick look back at Nate and nodded. “You’d better turn on your fucking jets. Both of you. Scotty’ll be pissed if we fuck this up.”

  “You just worry about beating that son of a bitch on the dot,” Eller said, skating away. Out of the
three of us, he was easily the fastest—but the Sharks knew that and would try harder to get in his way. It would probably have to be me to catch up to the puck.

  We got into position and the linesman dropped the puck. I didn’t wait to see if RJ won the face-off; I didn’t have time to. Both Eller and I took off, surprising the Sharks’ D enough that we got past them.

  I was just about to turn my head so I could see the puck coming my way when I heard RJ shout, “Fuck! Kally!”

  The Sharks had won the draw, and with Eller and me both already out of the zone, it was a five-on-three situation. I spun around and buried my head, skating as fast as I could to get back and defend. Eller made it into our zone just before me, but we were too late to do any good. They’d cycled the puck again and pulled Nate out of position, and Logan Couture had an easy tap-in at the side of the net.

  Completely winded, I bent over and rested my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. When I looked up again, Scotty’s face was purple as he yelled obscenities in my direction. I didn’t need to hear them to have a pretty good idea of what he was saying.

  I skated over to circle around behind Nate. “Sorry. We fucked you over on that. We’ll get it back. We’re not going to leave you out to dry like that, okay?” With the blade of my stick, I tapped him on the pads.

  He looked even greener than he had before, but he nodded his head.

  This looked like it was going to turn into a miserable fucking night.

  We lost the game against the Sharks five to three in the end, which wasn’t anywhere close to as bad as I think a lot of us expected it to be once Hunter went down. We weren’t happy about the loss—losing never felt good—but I think most of us were relieved that we’d managed to keep it as close as we did.

  I was really unhappy with myself, mainly because my points-scoring streak—the one that had started when Noelle came into my life—had come to an end. I didn’t get on the score sheet in any way. No goals. No assists. A big, fat, minus three for being on the ice when the Sharks scored so often.