Stockholm Diaries, Caroline

by Rebecca Hunter

  “Are you okay?” Ludvig’s voice came from far away. “You look like you need to sit down.”

  Ludvig looked around for a chair.

  “You don’t like the blood?”

  She found herself nodding, not ready to explain what was really going through her mind.

  Finally, she asked, “Who is that guy?”

  “The Swedish player? Niklas Almquist. Former Red Wing. Quick player, great record but too much temper. Injured his knee earlier this season, then got suspended for violence off the rink. Someone leaked photos of it to the press. You’ve never heard of him?”

  Caroline shook her head.

  “I don’t follow hockey,” she admitted, too dazed to care what he thought about that piece of information.

  “Well, this is Sweden, and everyone knows our country’s best NHL players, so you should, too. We’ll see how he reacts to questions about the fight tomorrow at the press conference, if he even shows up. He rarely says a word these days, but his English is good, and he’s one of their stars, so they’ll try to make him take some questions from the international press. You should be there. It’s a good way to get to know the players and get a feel for the team.”

  A press conference? Niklas would be sitting on the other side of the table, looking out at the reporters and photographers. This, she now realized, must be what he tried hard to avoid. Was that why he had turned away at the café when the woman grabbed his arm? Was it that he didn’t want to be recognized in public? If Caroline went to the press conference tomorrow, she would be right there with all the other members of the press, looking back at him. Though she barely knew him, Caroline had a feeling that Niklas wouldn’t react well when he saw her. In fact, she probably wouldn’t either if she were him.

  The fight was over, and Niklas and the Finnish player had skated off to the penalty boxes. The game was continuing without her, so Caroline decided that she couldn’t think about Niklas right now. She was here to get some good, marketable photos. She could make decisions about Niklas later.

  As the clock counted down the last minutes of the game, the score was tied, 2-2, and both teams looked tired from the increasingly rough checks that left the boards shaking. Finland took the puck down the ice for a last attempt on the Swedish goal. Niklas passed by, close enough to touch, to hear his breath. But at this moment it was clear that nothing else in the world mattered to him besides the Finnish player just ahead of him with the puck.

  Niklas skated faster, closing in on the white jersey. With a final push, he was right behind the guy. Reaching forward, Niklas wove his stick between the Finnish player’s stick and his skate without touching either. Then, with a little flick, he stalled the momentum of the puck long enough to pull it away. The Finnish player turned around and threw Niklas off balance, but not before Niklas passed the puck back to his teammate at center ice. With only seconds left, the Swedish player took off for the Finnish goal. The white jersey couldn’t catch him—he was too far ahead.

  Caroline heard the grunts of the Swedish player as he charged the goalie. With less than two meters between them, the Swedish player moved left. The goalie followed him and, as the yellow jersey closed in on him, the goalie sank to his knees. He took a chance, throwing his weight to that same side. But his effort came a moment too soon. The Swedish player cut right at the last minute. Just before the yellow jersey glided past the goal post, he snuck the puck in. The buzzer rang. Sweden had scored the final goal, edging out Finland, 3-2.

  Caroline caught the rush of the celebratory hugs as the Swedish players gathered around Niklas and the forward that had scored the goal. Niklas’s face was alive with a look she couldn’t remember seeing on an adult. It was a look of true, uncomplicated happiness. The kind of happiness that the weights of adult life rarely allowed.

  This must be why Niklas plays. She lowered her camera and just watched him.

  “What a game,” yelled Ludvig. Again, Caroline had forgotten he was there. When she turned, she could see he had been just as swept away by the events of the last few minutes.

  “I could tell Sweden would win tonight. Almquist had that look on his face, like he’s going to get whatever he wants, no matter what.”

  Caroline swallowed, taking in Ludvig’s last words.

  He turned to her and tapped her camera. “Did you get the shots you wanted?”

  “Um…” There wasn’t any good answer to his question.

  “You really need to be shooting the whole time if you don’t want to miss the best moments. You can’t just watch the game, waiting for something exciting to happen, and then lift your camera.”

  Of course, she knew this, but it would be pointless to explain why her mind was far from photography right now. Ludvig was still talking to her, but she couldn’t take her eyes from Niklas.

  Caroline felt Ludvig staring at her now. He must have asked her a question. She turned to him and was met with an intense gaze, making her wonder what, exactly, he imagined their relationship to be. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the players begin to skate off the rink. It was time to leave. Ludvig started to escort her to the press doors and back out into the blinding sunlight.

  “What did you ask me back in the arena?” she said.

  “Can I drive you home?”

  He was already heading them away from the subway station, towards his car, she assumed. But the last thing she wanted was to be stuck in a car listening to Ludvig’s photography tips.

  Caroline shook her head and gently pulled her arm away. Ludvig recovered almost immediately.

  “Then I’ll meet you here tomorrow for the press conference?”

  The idea gave her a cold, sinking feeling inside her stomach. She didn’t want Niklas to see her there. And that was a terrible reason to say no to the career opportunity Ludvig was handing her. She nodded her head before she could change her mind.

  “And thanks for the press pass,” she said. Then she turned back towards the subway station.

  Chapter Nine

  Caroline sat at the kitchen table, laptop in front of her, eating a sandwich. Veronica had shown her a strange (and, apparently, traditionally Swedish) concoction—shrimp, hard-boiled eggs, mayonnaise, thinly-sliced cucumbers, dill and some sort of caviar paste from a tube, all on a slice of bread—and now she found herself oddly craving it. Caroline took a bite of the picture-worthy arrangement and scanned her photos one more time.

  If these photos were going to be worth anything, she needed to send them out soon, but choosing which photos to send wasn’t easy. By far, the photo that best captured the intensity of the game was the shot of Niklas, blood running from his nose, going for another swing at the Finnish player. But it was the photo she knew she wouldn’t send out. Most likely, Connor would buy it, especially after hearing Ludvig’s story about Niklas’s previous fighting, both on and off the ice. Still she couldn’t send it out, if for no other reason than the fact that it came from Niklas’s own camera. Instead, Caroline attached one last photo, Niklas’s final steal of the puck, which had led to Sweden’s game-winning goal. With a deep breath, Caroline sent the message.

  Now that the photos were out, her mind went straight to the press conference. Her instinct told her she shouldn’t go, but that same instinct made her grit her teeth. One game into this new turn in her career she was already backing out to save someone’s feelings. Someone she hardly knew. Was she hesitating just because he kissed her? Before the events of the last few days, she wouldn’t have guessed that she would be so willing to put aside such a clear advance in her career.

  But she had to admit that this was no ordinary kiss. This was the kind she had read about in books she had hidden away as a teenager, the kind she never quite believed was real. But the kiss had been very real, real enough to push aside every other thought in her head. For those moments, she only felt—his soft, warm mouth, his tongue coaxing hers, the sensuous pull of his teeth against her bottom lip, his hands pressing he
r into the hard muscles of his body.

  But she kept coming back to the man she had seen out on the ice. The man who had shown both startling violence and overwhelming joy during the game today. What did he do with those parts of him when there was no rink?

  Caroline glanced at the time—just before 5:00 pm. Filip was still at work, and Veronica was probably home. She stuffed the camera back in the bag and headed downstairs.

  Veronica answered on the third knock, her clothes splattered with paint.

  “Wait for me in the kitchen,” said Veronica, letting her through. “I’m just finishing up.”

  Caroline wandered down the hallway and into the kitchen. Caroline admired how Veronica had managed to find the meeting point between the bright blues and elaborate details of Mexico and the preference for sleek lines and minimalist white in Swedish design. The counters were tiled in blue, and the color echoed in various corners of the room. The table and chairs were wooden and rustic, all painted white, and an elaborately stitched cloth from Mexico covered the table.

  How did Veronica make this work? How could she live in a country so foreign from her own, far away from her family? As much as Caroline loved to travel, she couldn’t imagine being away forever.

  Caroline studied the one, long, white wall lined with Veronica’s paintings. The paintings were at once both simple and elaborate. The bird against the starry night in front of her was quite simple and one-dimensional, but there were the colors upon colors of wavy lines running through the body and out into the tail feathers, each wave decorated with intricate patterns that made the painting come alive.

  “Beautiful,” whispered Caroline when she heard Veronica’s footsteps behind her.

  “Thanks,” said Veronica. Caroline turned in time to see a rare blush on her friend’s cheeks. “I think I finally found a dealer. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to paint here in Sweden, but it turns out that just the opposite is true.”

  “Because you miss Mexico?”

  “Maybe. But I never painted like this when I was in Mexico—or at Michigan, either. There’s something freeing about living so far from home.”

  Veronica had now traded her painting clothes for a simple black dress. She unclasped a colorful barrette and let her dark, wavy hair swing down over her shoulders. Veronica was still very much the same person that had walked into her dorm room on the first day of college, chattering in Spanish at a pace Caroline couldn’t hope to keep up with, and plopping herself down on the bed Caroline had already claimed. But at the same time, as Caroline watched her friend set up a plate full of cinnamon rolls and tiny cookies, she could see Veronica was at home here.

  “What do you miss most?” asked Caroline.

  “Family, of course. The sun in the wintertime. Close friends. The few friends I have live all over Stockholm, so we don’t see each other very often. We have dinner with some of Filip’s friends a couple times a month, but the Swedish women I’ve met don’t seem to be very interested in friendships, at least not the kind I’m used to.”

  “That sounds like a lot of things to miss.”

  “It took a long time to adjust,” said Veronica, smiling, “but you haven’t asked me what I got in return.”

  “Your painting?”

  Veronica laughed. “Yes, that, too. But I have Filip. He is enough to keep me here, even if there were nothing else. And there’s a part of me that was always curious about whatever was just out of sight, and living abroad keeps that part of me satisfied. It’s the reason I came to the University of Michigan while all my sisters stayed in my hometown. Going to college in a place that had snow was as different a life as I could think of at the time.”

  Caroline thought about her own future, which was far from clear. “I don’t know. As much as I want to travel, I have a hard time imagining living this far away from home.”

  “Then you don’t have anywhere near the imagination I thought you did, Carolita.”

  The combination of the sassy response and her old nickname coming out of Veronica’s mouth sent both women into a fit of laughter.

  “How was the game?” said Veronica, pouring them both cups of steaming espresso from the hot metal pot. “

  Caroline could feel the laughter fade from her face.

  “That’s what I came to show you.”

  Caroline took out the camera and turned it on, scrolling through the photos.

  “Nice camera,” said Veronica. “Happy you accepted Ludvig’s pass now?”

  “I guess you could say that,” she said, “but look at this photo.”

  Caroline searched until she found Niklas’s fight.

  “I bet there are plenty of publications that will buy that one,” said Veronica, glancing at the screen.

  “Maybe. But look closely.”

  Caroline zoomed in until Niklas’s face was perfectly clear, blood and all.

  “No…” said Veronica softly.

  “Yes. And this is his camera.”

  Veronica studied the face on the screen.

  “That look on his face—he looks like he’s…,” her voice trailed off, but Caroline could fill in the rest of the sentence by herself. He looked like he was going to punch the next person that came near him, regardless of who it was. Like this was the last person you’d ever want to live across the hall from. Let alone kiss.

  “I didn’t submit the photo,” said Caroline. “I couldn’t do it.”

  She filled Veronica in on what Ludvig had told her about Niklas’s career and the photo scandal back in Detroit.

  “I guess that explains his reaction to your camera. Though I still think it’s a little extreme,” said Veronica.

  “I want to tell him that I was at the game and that I took some photos,” said Caroline, glancing back down at the image of Niklas on the camera screen.

  “Why? He’s a professional athlete. You didn’t stalk him in order to take photos of him. This isn’t his private life. This is his job.”

  But there was something uncomfortable about selling photos of Niklas when she hadn’t told him first. It felt like she was somehow misleading him—at least if she were in his place, she would probably see it like that.

  Veronica put her hand on Caroline’s and purposely exaggerated her Spanish accent. “You just want another kiss from that sexy mouth.”

  Caroline couldn’t help laughing again, but a rush of heat ran through her when she thought of kissing Niklas again. Veronica was right, at least partly so.

  “How was I supposed to know he’s a hockey player?” said Caroline, still giggling. “He has all his teeth.”

  “Are you sure?” said Veronica, laughing, too. “They could be fake. Research that the next time you kiss him and let me know.”

  Caroline put her head down on the table and shook her head.

  “I haven’t been out all day,” said Veronica, brushing the crumbs from her hands. “Let’s go for a long walk and find a new restaurant for dinner. Filip is working late.”

  A long walk sounded exactly like what Caroline needed.

  “I just need to drop off the camera and change my shoes,” said Caroline, standing up. “I bought some new ones. My feet are killing me from all this walking.”

  “Welcome to Europe,” smiled Veronica.

  A few minutes later, Caroline rubbed the blister forming on the back of her heel and slipped on her new tennis shoes. She grabbed her purse and locked the door behind her.

  Then she stopped. Footsteps in the stairwell. She stayed still, waiting for the person to wind around the narrow staircase into sight. Was it Niklas? Her heart was suddenly thumping in her throat, though whether it was at the prospect of telling him about the photos or something else, she wasn’t sure.

  Niklas rounded the corner and stopped abruptly. He was clearly surprised to see her, and it didn’t look like the good kind of surprise. It looked as if she were interrupting something, though she couldn’t imagine what that something could be. T
hen she watched his eyes move from her dress to her tennis shoes, and the faintest hint of a smiled crossed his face. But the smile—if there ever was one—disappeared almost immediately. He nodded in her direction and then continued up the stairs, past Caroline, eyes on the ground.

  “Niklas?” said Caroline as she watched him unlock his door.

  He shook his head, keeping his eyes on the door.

  “Later,” he grunted. “I can’t right now.”

  Anger surged as she saw how easily he could blow her off. The locked clicked, and he stepped inside.

  “Niklas,” she tried again. “I wanted to—”

  But before she could finish her sentence, he slammed the door and locked it behind him.

  For the third time—or fourth? She was losing count. She found herself reeling at his clear dismissal of her. He slammed the door on her, even as she was trying to talk to him. Was this the kind of arrogance that professional sports bred in a guy? It was embarrassing to think her mind had wandered to kissing him only a few minutes before.

  One thing was certain: Whatever hesitation she had about going to the press conference the next day was gone.

  Chapter Ten

  The press conference room was smaller than Caroline had imagined it would be. The front was lined with a long row of tables and microphones. Only a few feet away from those tables, rows of chairs had been set up for the media—her, she reminded herself.

  Apart from the hockey federation banners that hung behind the players’ seats, the rest of the room was white. They were there early, thanks to Ludvig, and only a few other photographers and writers were seated in the front row. Maybe she could think of a reason they should sit further back in the room, Caroline thought. But what was she trying to do? Hide? She was here, and he was going to see her at some point. The idea of trying to avoid him sounded laughable, even childish, and it made the uneasiness inside of her worse.

  Ludvig led her over to the second row of chairs. Niklas sure wouldn’t miss her there, Caroline thought, irritated with herself for still second-guessing her decision to come. Why couldn’t she just make the decision and stop looking back? Unless she was ready to run out now, it was much too late to change her mind.