The Tao of Hockey (Vancouver Vice #1)

by Melanie Ting

  “She is pretty tightly wound. She seems to think I’m going to do something criminal to you now that we’re alone.”

  Josie groaned. “Richard and Cynthia aren’t really the jerks they seem to be. I’m the youngest, so they look out for me. I’ve done things differently from them, so we clash a lot.”

  “Well, I assume that they care about you, but you guys sure have weird ways of showing it.”

  “That’s our family in a nutshell. But if I ever need them, they’ll be there. Even my dad. I just try really hard not to need them.”

  “Depending on someone is not the worst thing.”

  There was a little smile on her face. “You’re here, aren’t you, Ricky? I must be depending on you. And speaking of that, let’s see what groceries you got.”

  She began poking through the food. “Seriously, dude? All these groceries, and there’s still nothing to eat.”

  “While you’re recovering, it’s important to put good food into your body. Healthy meals will aid your body’s healing.”

  She stuck out her lower lip. “When you’re sick, everyone’s supposed to be nice to you and give you treats. Like ice cream.”

  “There is ice cream.”

  “Oh boy!” She yanked open the freezer drawer, pulled out the container, and held it up. “Are you kidding me? Eric, this is made of avocados. Who eats frozen avocados?”

  “You should give it a try before you diss it. It’s got great texture, and this one is chocolate.”

  “I don’t even know where you get this crap. Is there some magical raw foods superstore with hippie staff and spirit animals tied to posts in front?”

  “I’ll do the cooking. Let me make you meals for a week, and if you really hate them, we’ll get whatever you want.”

  She scowled at me. “I’m not used to having someone around all the time. Don’t you have to play hockey somewhere?”

  “Well, that’s something we need to discuss. Let’s sit down.”

  We went back to the living room where it was more comfortable for Josie. I watched her ease herself down. Every time she used her pectoral muscles it hurt.

  “So, you know I got cut right?”

  She nodded.

  “I was wondering how you feel about Switzerland. Where there’s lots of chocolate.”

  Josie tilted her head at me and narrowed her eyes. “No. Forget it. I said I’m not going to tell you what to do.”

  “I told you what I want—to be with you. If you won’t come to Switzerland, why should I even investigate it?”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t work this way. You need to find a job you want first. Then we settle the next part.”

  “I want to play hockey.”

  There was a long pause. Josie leaned forward and put her hands on my cheeks. She turned my face towards her, and stared at me. Her gaze was so intense that it felt like x-ray vision. “Where?”

  “Anywhere that’ll take me.”

  “That’s not what you want, that’s still letting other people run your life. Where do you want to play hockey?”

  I could feel the answer rising up inside me before I even consciously knew it. The response was like a word bubble that popped out of my mouth. “The NHL.”

  “Ahhh.” Josie nodded and let go of my face. “That answer makes sense. That’s why you’ve been doing all this work. Because you want your shot.”

  I reached down and held her hands. “If you knew, why did you make me say it?”

  “Because I wasn’t sure if you knew.”

  “But I’m kind of fucked right now.”

  “Explain the whole deal to me again.”

  “I have to get into the AHL, because it’s one step below the NHL. Scouts and GMs can see me there. And the Vice were the only team who would even consider taking me. The only other option would be to go down to the ECHL, and maybe get a shot at moving up once teams have injuries and stuff.”

  Josie put her fingers up to her temples and rubbed them. I felt shitty for bothering her with all this.

  “Let me see your contract,” Josie said. I found it on my phone and handed it to her. She scrolled through, reading and shaking her head. “This morals clause is crap. It’s so vague that breathing wrong could be cause for dismissal.”

  “So that’s bad, right? Even if I haven’t done anything too wrong, it’s enough to fire me.”

  “No, it’s good. A decent lawyer could demonstrate that it creates an unreasonable standard of conduct.”

  “How come you know so much about this stuff?”

  She made a face. “I had to live with a lawyer who thought that mealtimes were the perfect opportunity for debate. My father had me tagged to become a lawyer—just like him. And join his firm, like Richard did.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, first off, he left my mom for another woman. That didn’t exactly endear him or the profession to me. And then once my mom died, university didn’t seem so important anymore. I wanted to live and do active things while I’m still young. I could do law school anytime. But now I’m not sure I ever will.”

  “What about Cynthia? How come she didn’t become a lawyer?”

  Josie laughed, but it wasn’t her full, throaty laugh. “Here’s a direct quote from my father: ‘Cynthia, you’re the pretty one—just like your mother. Richard and Josephine are going to law school, but you won’t need to.’ How to insult four people at once. It’s a skill.”

  “I wish you could be there with me when I talk to Panner. I could use someone who knows the law like you.”

  “Sure. Someone who looks like a bike courier is not going to cut a lot of ice with your coach.”

  I kissed her on the forehead. “You look like a superhero to me. And you could wear your pretty new dress from Cynthia.”

  “Already burned that,” Josie replied with a laugh. “No, Eric. For a job like this, you need a real lawyer.”

  29

  Lawyered Up

  We paused outside Panner’s closed office door.

  “Okay, Eric. Let me do the talking.”

  I nodded, that was fine with me. I had a hollow feeling in my stomach. After all, getting to stay in Vancouver had become a lot more important in the past 24 hours. I knocked on the door.

  “Yeah?” Panner’s voice sounded irritated before he had even seen my face. I opened the door, and we walked in.

  “Mr. Pankowski? I’m Richard MacMillan of MacMillan, Brunswick, Carr.” With one smooth motion he shook the coach’s hand and then slipped a business card onto the desk. We all sat down in the cramped office. In his expensive suit, Richard looked extremely out of place.

  When Panner saw me, he scowled. I straightened up in my chair and stared him down.

  “What are you doing here, Fairburn?”

  “I want back on the team.”

  Richard kicked me in the ankle.

  “Mr. Pankowski, I understand that you released Mr. Fairburn from his contract on the basis of a recent car accident.”

  “Yeah, but—how exactly is this your business?”

  “Sorry, did I not explain that Mr. Fairburn is my client?”

  “Why does he even need a lawyer?”

  “Let’s start off with the facts.” He passed Panner a file folder. “This is the police report I got from Constable Vinci, the officer assigned to investigate Mr. Fairburn’s accident. If you read it, you’ll see that he was completely not at fault. The driver of the other car was speeding and ran a stop sign. She’s been charged with reckless driving causing injury.”

  Panner kept leafing through the file. I realized he had no clue what it all meant. He had probably read only that one web article and never really investigated my accident. That made me even angrier. Players got cut all the time, and they didn’t have a high-powered lawyer to try to save their asses.

  “Are you related to this Josephine MacMillan?” Panner asked. He rotated his neck several times.

  “Yes. She’s my sister.” Richard fixed the coach wit
h an ice-cold glare. I had experienced that glare myself, and it was scary. “I understand that you slandered her. But hopefully I won’t have to file suit on that account. The main issue here is one of wrongful dismissal.”

  Panner had stopped chewing gum or even blinking.

  “A thorough investigation would have revealed that Mr. Fairburn was not at fault, therefore the so-called morals clause that you added to his contract should not have come into effect. By the way, you should consult an attorney because the morals clause as it stands is not defendable in court. It lacks concrete definition.”

  Panner finally recovered some of his bluster. “What about the bad publicity he got for the team? You know he’s done this kind of thing before.”

  Richard shook his head. “If you reread the article, I think you see that all the ‘bad publicity’ was generated by last season’s Vancouver Vice team. Which you were in charge of, I believe. And if you’re referring to Mr. Fairburn’s DUI conviction, he has fully discharged all the penalties for that and is beginning with a clean slate.” Richard raised his eyebrows. “Fresh starts are a good idea. Don’t you agree?”

  “Well—” Panner’s eyes darted from side-to-side, as he tried to weasel his way out. “Unfortunately, we’ve already filled his roster spot.”

  “Really? Because I have it on good authority that you still had an opening as of 9:00am this morning.” Under pressure from Richard, I had called Brenda. She was all too happy to supply me with the roster information.

  “Back to the issue of wrongful dismissal suits.” Richard paused, leaned back, and tented his fingers. This guy was a master S.O.B. And right now, he was my S.O.B.! “In my experience, most of these suits could most easily have been settled by reinstating the employee early in the process—before the costly issue of damages to reputation have arisen.”

  He smiled, and I was reminded of a snake charmer with a snake. “I think you’ll find the damages that Mr. Fairburn might receive would be well in excess of his original contract, and then there are lawyers’ fees. And unfortunately, those fees can add up.” He chuckled in a completely humourless way.

  The idea of paying me more money for not playing had caused a sweat to break out on Panner’s forehead. “Well, I’ll have to talk to the GM before I can do anything.”

  “No need to do that. We already have an appointment to see him this afternoon. I was only hoping that since you hadn’t filled the roster spot, and since Mr. Fairburn is such a skilled player—we might settle this matter right here and now. But if you don’t have the power to reinstate him, that’s fine. We’ll involve your boss and apprise him of the whole situation—your erroneous dismissal of the player and the resulting exposure of the organization to a lawsuit.”

  Panner didn’t say a word. You could see all the scenarios running through his head.

  Just then someone rapped on the door, and Coach Lee stuck his head inside.

  “Rob, I was just—” He stopped talking and stared at us. “Oh sorry, I didn’t know you had a meeting going on. Oh hey, Eric.” He gave me a head nod and started to leave, but Panner called him back in.

  The head coach glared at me. “So, Ian, it looks like Fairburn here has sorted out his, er, issues, and he can rejoin the team.”

  A big smile broke out over Coach Lee’s face, but after noticing Panner’s scowl, he quickly hid it. “Uh, okay. I guess we can still fit him in somewhere. I’ll be in and around the training room, Eric. You can come by and see me later, and I’ll get you set up.” He backed out of the office.

  Richard opened up his briefcase. “Well, it’s great that we could come to this understanding. But before I go, I’d like to get this all in writing. Here’s a memorandum stating that you agree to the new terms.”

  Panner signed it without reading a thing.

  “And here’s a new copy of Mr. Fairburn’s contract. It’s exactly the same as his previous one, except the morals clause has been removed. As I mentioned, in its current state, the clause is not actionable. So there are really no material changes.”

  “Okay. But I’ll have to get the General Manager to sign off as well.”

  “That’s fine. As a representative of the Vancouver Vice, your signature is binding. Any paperwork required on your end, you can fulfill. I’ll take this copy for Mr. Fairburn’s files.”

  Panner nodded. I’d never seen him so quiet before.

  Richard stood up and extended his hand again. “Thank you very much, Mr. Pankowski. Glad that we could settle this matter so easily. We appreciate your time and effort.”

  I got up, nodded at the coach, and thanked him as well. He scowled.

  Richard was already checking his phone as we walked down the hallway, so we didn’t speak until we left the building.

  “You know, Eric, when your lawyer tells you to shut up, you need to shut up.”

  “Yeah, sorry. Panner gets my back up.”

  “I’ve seen cases like this before. He’s going to make your life hell from now on, you know.”

  I shrugged. “He was already. How much worse can it be?”

  “You’ll find out, I’m sure.”

  “I can handle it. Hey, how did you get a meeting with Mr. Richardson so fast?” The team GM was notoriously hard to reach. Unless you were a beautiful woman, or so the rumours went.

  Richard smiled. “The lawyer is the one who should ask the questions. I prefer to keep my methods to myself.”

  Son of a bitch! He never had a meeting. I laughed loudly.

  “Okay, I have to go now.” He hit the remote, and his Mercedes beeped open. He held out his hand and shook mine.

  “Good luck, Eric.”

  “Thank you so much. What you did today was huge.”

  “You’re welcome. But I didn’t do this for you. It’s the first favour that JoJo has asked of me in ages—” He didn’t finish the sentence, and again I was struck by how every one of the MacMillans seemed unable to express affection normally. To find out that Josie was the warmest member of her family was stunning. But they all seemed to care in their own ways. Richard put on his sunglasses and turned to me. “Be good to her.”

  His tone made that sound like a threat. But he didn’t have to worry, and I was pretty sure he knew that.

  As I turned to go back into the arena, I noticed that Rams was standing in the entranceway. He had been watching us. Now I’d have to deal with him daily, and I didn’t want to waste energy watching my back every moment. What Would Richard Do?

  “Hey, Rams.” I ran up to him. “Great news. That was my lawyer, and I’m back on the team.”

  He looked less than thrilled to hear that. “Really? Well, we’ll see how long that lasts.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m going to stick.” Then I leaned in closer. “But you want to know something really interesting?”

  He nodded slowly.

  “In all that free time I had, I did a little investigating on my own. I went back to that pub we were at. I was talking to this waitress—you remember the one with bright red hair? Anyway, she saw something weird. Someone put something into the shots we drank. No wonder a lot of guys got sick.”

  He flinched a little. “That is weird.”

  I pulled a folded paper out of my jacket and waved it at him. “I asked her to sign a statement verifying what she had witnessed. Once we get a team photo, I’ll go back and get her to pick out whoever it was that did that. According to my lawyer, that’s a prosecutable offense.”

  Was “prosecutable” even a word? I must have heard it on TV, but whatever—this was working. Rams looked very nervous.

  “You know, Burner, maybe pushing this thing is not the best idea—you know, for team unity.”

  “D’ya think? Maybe it was one of the guys who got cut. Anyway, the most important thing is how things go from now on. If bad shit keeps happening, it will be important to sort out who the asshole causing the problems is.”

  I watched him swallow and nod. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Hey, welcome back, Burner
.”

  “Thanks.”

  We both headed inside. He was a huge fucking phony, but at least I had called him on his shit. I tucked my new contract back into my jacket pocket.

  30

  Celebrate Good Times

  After calling Lance and meeting with Coach Lee, I rushed home to see Josie. She was still lodged amongst the living room pillows where I had left her, but on the table there was an empty container of chocolate avocado ice cream.

  “Well?” She looked up at me with wide eyes.

  “I’m back!”

  “Woo hoo!” She tried to high-five me but ended up wincing. “Ow, my ribs.”

  “Oh no. Don’t hurt yourself.” I sat down beside her on the couch.

  “But we have to celebrate.” She stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out a shrill whistle.

  I shook my ears. “Jeez, Josie. That hurt.”

  “I am a woman of many talents. So, tell me all about it.”

  “Richard was phenomenal. He made me want to go to law school.”

  She held up her fingers in the sign of the cross. “Stay away, bloodsucker.”

  “He had Panner cowering by the time he was done. And he completely snowed him into thinking we had a meeting with Richardson. It was magnificent. And all because of you!” I leaned in to kiss her. We had developed a new kissing system that didn’t involve our bodies touching at all.

  “Richard can be all right,” Josie admitted. “I’m sure he was in his element. Now I’ll have to be nice to him at the next family reunion.”

  “You have family reunions?” That would be scary.

  “No. But now they might start so they can dissect you.”

  “Your brother started by finding out the worst stuff about me, so things can only get better from here.”

  Josie laughed. “Who cares what people think?”

  I squeezed her hand. “Well, I do. But I’m trying to make sure it’s only important people.”

  “Like me?”

  I nodded. “The most important person. How are you feeling today?”