Hard Knocks

by Ruby Lang

  “Hockey punditry?”

  “Hockey commentary. Local hockey commentary. Okay, very local, so far. But Yevgeny has interests all over the world.”

  Serge shook his head. “You don’t want to do that. It’s a short life. You have to make quips. You have to suck up and analyze. You don’t even like hockey that much anymore. Your whole life will be tied to talking about it.”

  “Or maybe I can be seen as management material.”

  “You aren’t enough of an asshole douche nozzle to be management material.”

  “Like I said, your English is great.”

  “You’re Adam Magnus, the mild-mannered metalhead, not micromanaging moron Magnus.”

  “I wear suits. I like suits.”

  “You wear them too well. If you want to be in management, you should have expensive clothing that is poorly tailored. It shows you don’t have enough time for alterations. All you care about is work.”

  The goalie sounded petulant.

  “Serge, why don’t you want me to change? Do you have a problem with this stuff? Do you have a problem with me?”

  Serge pushed his tray away and stood up.

  “Yeah, of course I do. What do you expect? I see you making plans. You can’t wait to go. Well, where does that leave me?”

  “You already have plans, Serge. Remember? The family restaurant?”

  “I hate those plans,” Serge said.

  He picked up his fruit salad, replaced the lid, and tossed it into the garbage container. It was a beautiful shot.

  Serge started to walk away, then he paused. Without looking, he said, “All I ever wanted to do was play hockey. It’s all I want to do. You’re not even really here anymore, Adam. You’re already gone.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SNOWBALL GAMES: DOCS VS. JOCKS, the posters screamed. Apparently, this phrase was a thing now. For the seven thousandth time, Helen muttered something about how apparently people did actually watch the Declan Quail Show despite the fact that no one admitted to it.

  It was the day after Thanksgiving—American Thanksgiving, as Helen still thought of it, even after all these years—and another practice had been called. Weber had not lied. Most of the players were orthopedic surgeons, male, and they had their own game shorthand. Or maybe they were just jerks. During practice, Helen had been exiled to some obscure spot in the outfield where she stood staring at the clouds. She didn’t really mind. She could hang out in the cold, mushy field, not really having to think or pay attention to anything for long periods of time. Or rather, she thought she didn’t have to pay much attention. When they left the field, they had to call her repeatedly before, finally, Dr. Al McGinnis came out and escorted her back. He didn’t respect her softball skills or her as a person, clearly, but that didn’t stop him from making a pass at her. With a swish of her hair and a well-aimed smile, she could probably have a date, she thought, trudging through the mud. She squelched through the field as sloppily as she could and frowned discouragingly.

  She wasn’t uncoordinated or weak, she thought defensively as Al McGinnis explained the finer points of the game to her. Actually, they weren’t finer points. He seemed to think that she needed to learn the basic rules. She could understand basic rules, as if Weber—and really, life in North America—hadn’t already taken care of that. She hit the ball decently once or twice. It was hard to tell if she could catch, because no one threw to her, and certainly, no one let anything anywhere near her.

  Al McGinnis was probably the kind of person she should date. They were both doctors, so they would have things to talk about. Except, she didn’t care about anything he said. Now he seemed to be talking about some sort of knee replacement surgery he was trying to perfect.

  She said something about an anterior cruciate ligament injury she’d suffered, and he said, “Dancer, right?”

  “Former.”

  “I can tell by the way you move. You’ve got the build.”

  He probably thought that was a great line, too. Adam had said something similar to her once. But he’d said it better.

  She considered Al McGinnis’s lips. They were fine. Nice, even. His hair was sandy; he had a good tan. Tall. Meaty hands.

  Ugh.

  He was adequate. If she could date people like him, maybe she would forget Adam. Maybe she’d have a life. Maybe she’d stop worrying about her dad. Maybe she would be able to sleep through the night without running endlessly over things she’d said, things she’d failed to say, better drug combinations for her father, drug combinations to soothe herself.

  Her dad would be out of hospital soon. He had a space in a nice place, according to her brother. Rosedale Senior Assisted Living Facility, it was called. It probably didn’t have roses, and it likely wasn’t in a dale. Her mom had already found an apartment nearby. They hadn’t put the house on the market yet, and Helen felt a hard knot of happiness about the fact that it was still theirs. It was immature and it didn’t help her family, but the knowledge that the wide porch was still there with the stained crocheted rug and that the town was there, unchanging, had been the only thing that kept her sane sometimes, especially in those hard days when she had been at the ballet school.

  “We should come up with Roller Derby names,” said Helen brightly, interrupting whatever Al McGinnis was talking about. “We’ll strike fear into the hearts of our opponents. I can be Hell-On Wheels. Maybe I can be Helen Killer.”

  “This isn’t Roller Derby.”

  Her team was no fun.

  The game was scheduled for the next day. She wished for rain, and in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that big a demand; she did, after all, live in Portland. When the clouds persisted, she thought that maybe her modest prayers had been answered. But it was not to be. The field fogged up, little droplets came close to coalescing into big ones, but rain did not come to pass.

  The gods hated her.

  She put on the garish pink team jersey. It was a little big. No one else on her bro-boy team had a jersey in this particular color. They also managed to get her a gigantic pink baseball hat. She liked pink but this was annoying. To complete the hideousness of her outfit, she decided to wear the tiger-striped tights, despite the fact that she’d be ridiculed. She was going to be ridiculed for her playing anyway. Why not just go all the way? If she could find a clown nose, she would have donned it.

  Part of her understood that she would be seeing Adam again and not under great circumstances. Then again, when had they ever been really good? She had first met him after he was in an accident. Then, she’d run into him on the street and yelled at him (which still managed to lead to sex). Then he had been angry with her after the editorial, and he’d called in for that disastrous radio show. Then there was the last time, during that stupid TV appearance.

  She told herself that he’d listened to her that night after the Declan Quail Show out of pity, that she felt ashamed of herself for breaking down that way, that she had said too much and felt too much. But she couldn’t muster up the proper defiance. Something about him crept behind her defenses. Maybe it was his strength and solidness, not in body, but in spirit. Despite his aggression on the ice, in person he was overwhelmingly gentle. His big fingers whispered across her skin like a loving ghost.

  She frowned at her reflection and told herself it didn’t matter what she looked like. In fact, this was great, perfect. It inspired just the right amount of repulsion. He would not want to touch her while she looked like this. She should smudge dirt under her eyes—or whatever it was that ballplayers painted their faces with—to complete the picture.

  She should probably be psyching herself up for the game instead of reverse primping.

  She gave one last look to the mirror. “Do your best,” she said, “or do your worst.”

  The bleachers were crowded that day. Helen liked to think it was because there were a lot of people who wanted a renovated children’s wing, but she knew that the hospital publicity machine had been working overtime to make this a
grudge match. It was probably nice to be in the stands, to know which side to root for, to expect a clear score.

  Chairwoman Chister approached her and introduced herself. She was slim and beautiful, and her bob was so sharp it would have sliced Anna Wintour to shreds. The chair introduced her husband, the developer. There was a flash as someone took a picture of Helen and Chairwoman Chister’s anti-arena developer husband shaking hands.

  She should have known there would be pictures. She was clad in tiger-striped leggings, an oversize pink jersey, and an ugly baseball cap, and she looked a movie producer’s idea of a feisty-but-lovable grandmother, dressed for a rousing game of bingo.

  The husband just winked at her. Chister’s husband was a winker.

  She saw the celebrity athletes from the other team approaching. They had not bothered with matching uniforms, probably because they knew that everyone would take one look at them and know who they were. Well, everyone except for her. Too bad they hadn’t asked anyone from the ballet to join them.

  The rest of the doc team was beaming. They were excited to meet their adversaries.

  She scowled and caught sight of Adam. He raised an eyebrow and mock-frowned at her. She pulled her cap lower over her head as if she thought the pink would camouflage her and hung back, but he sidled right up to her and put his big warm hand on her back, and she felt her insides turn into hot fudge sauce. She increased the fierceness of her glower, but didn’t step away.

  “They’re going to want a picture,” she growled.

  “Are you worried that you’re going to outshine me?” he asked, pulling her cap up so that he could look into her eyes. “That’s very kind of you.”

  “Oh, shut up,” she said.

  “Nice hat,” he said. “Why is yours pink?”

  “It matches my vagina,” she said, sourly.

  He quirked a smile. “Not quite,” he said, in her ear.

  She flushed so warmly that her heels tingled. “Right. Now the hat just matches my face.”

  “And why is the shirt so big?” he asked.

  “All the better to house my enormous rippling muscles. At least, that’s what my teammates probably thought when they ordered it.”

  “I’m surprised you agreed to play,” he said.

  “I didn’t exactly jump at the chance to be the team mascot. But here I am.”

  “At least they didn’t dress you up like a mallard or an adorable little wolf. Actually, I don’t think I’d mind seeing you in a wolf costume.”

  It was her turn to whisper in his ear. “Were you always this dirty?”

  *

  She would probably look good in his jersey, he thought, imagining the shiny drape of the material over her chest, the hem just skimming the curve of her ass. If he were being realistic, the shirt would probably hit her much lower. Then again, how realistic was it to picture her smiling at him that way again? And how realistic was it to imagine that she would be slowly taking that item of clothing off and tossing it to the side?

  She was blushing, though.

  He really shouldn’t think of her this way right now, he realized, as his own body tightened. Especially when she was so close that he could smell her. He didn’t understand how ballplayers could walk around in these little sweats. He coughed, and she looked at him quizzically.

  “I’m glad I caught you two together!” a man said, inserting himself between the two of them.

  They both jumped back a little guiltily, which was silly because they were in full view of the field. Then again, they had been talking about her vagina.

  “Dr. Frobisher, I’m Karl Pallas, a producer for KPOT Sports Radio. You and Adam here—” the stranger clapped Adam’s back, “are going to chat about hockey a little, maybe talk a little trash. All PG, radio friendly of course.”

  “Well of course. It’s for charity,” Helen said.

  Adam could tell she was talking between gritted teeth. As the producer fiddled with his recorder, Helen’s hands opened and shut, as if she wanted to rip the equipment out of the guy’s hands or dig a hole deep in the earth and drop down into the ground. He wouldn’t mind joining her. Except that Janel was not five feet away now, pretending not to hover. He smiled brightly, even though this was radio.

  “I tell you, this arena and the brain injury thing are the most exciting things to happen to the Wolves all season,” Karl was saying.

  He held a huge mike in Helen’s face expectantly. “Oh. You’re recording. You want me to comment on that,” Helen said.

  Janel was probably snickering if she heard that, and Adam felt defensiveness on Helen’s behalf rise up. She hadn’t spent hours and hours in media training learning how to respond to nonquestions the way he had.

  Plus, she was already starting to get riled. “Listen, I couldn’t give a flying f—a flying fig about this arena. But I do care about the way people play this sport. I care about education and training. And I recognize that the NHL has taken steps to curb the risks. But watching it as a doctor—as a person who cares about what it can do to a body—it’s just terrifying.”

  “But that’s what people like,” Karl said. “That’s part of the appeal.”

  Helen threw up her hands, another gesture that was lost on the radio. Adam could tell it was all starting to get to her. But, of course, if she lost control in the media, it would be over. He tried to divert. “Hey, hey, I can’t believe you think the arena’s the best thing to happen to the Wolves. What about the last few games? We’re working hard on offense over there, but Korhonen’s really coming into his own.”

  Karl looked relieved to be talking about sports with a man. Helen rolled her eyes, but Karl didn’t notice, so singular was his focus on Adam.

  After a few more quips and shoulder pats, Karl turned dutifully back to Helen. “Bobby from Healy Heights wants to know why you’re against fun.”

  Helen’s mouth opened. She gave Karl a narrow-eyed look. Then she grabbed the mike from his hand. “That’s right, Bobby, I’m against fun. I’m against being people being so punch drunk that they forget their kids’ birthdays, names, how to stand, if they’ve eaten. I’m against fights and injuries that lead to a grown man being unable to bring a drink to his mouth because his arms are trembling so much he can’t hold a cup without sloshing half the beer over himself. I’m against being people being so incapacitated that they choke on a mouthful of soup that someone has fed them. I’m against the kind of culture that doesn’t want to change that because that’s how the game is played. I do get to see what happens afterward, though. You may not agree with my thoughts. I’m not sure I know the best way either—maybe my statements are a blunt instrument. But I do know that I am firmly against this happening to people when it can be prevented. So yeah, I’m against fun, all right. Because apparently this kind of fun is completely fucking overrated.”

  She handed the mike back to Karl.

  “I’m sorry I used an expletive on the air,” she said.

  Karl laughed nervously. “Thanks for talking to us,” he said.

  Helen leaned into the microphone. “You’re welcome,” she said very loudly and smiled at him as she walked away.

  Karl almost seemed to apologize to Adam after Helen’s outburst, and Adam felt an almost irrational desire to laugh his ass off. He couldn’t summon up any annoyance with her—not anymore. He wrapped up his comments as quickly as he could and followed after Helen.

  “Well, that was a terrible interview,” she said, almost cheerfully as Adam caught up with her. “I seem to be getting worse and worse.”

  She made no move to get away from him. Even in her silly costume, she was compelling. The tiger tights should not have looked good on her, but the stripes delineated every firm curve of her legs. The hat, though, that bothered him.

  “I think you broke all the PR rules in less than ten minutes,” he said.

  “And I really only spoke for one or two of those minutes,” she said. “I like to be liked. I want people to like me. But this is important t
o me. So I guess I’m the downer asshole.”

  “Downer asshole in a terrible hat that hides your face. Your beautiful face.”

  He turned the cap backward on her head so that he could see her eyes. “Stop it,” she said, turning it back. More softly, she said, “You’re flirting with me.”

  She made a motion like she would walk away. He could swear that she was blushing. “We always flirt with each other,” he said.

  “Yes, but ...”

  Someone was calling for their attention. The game was about to begin. Helen went back to join her team.

  He didn’t pay attention to the introduction or the speech. The sandy-haired guy standing too close to Helen was a distraction. He was probably another doc. Adam wondered how well they knew each other. Helen wasn’t that interested in Sandy, though. She kept her eyes hidden under the hat. One by one, a black-haired woman with a severe bob called out their names. There were no actual baseballers here today. Serge was here, and a few basketball players were huddled together. There was also a skateboarder and a former Olympic skier and a golfer. Helen, he noticed, got a wolf whistle from the stands. He thought he recognized Helen’s friend, Petra.

  It was nice to be able to look into the stands in the middle of a pleasant Saturday, he thought, with people cheering honestly and without rancor. The bobbed woman was calling his name, and he waved.

  He received an unexpected roar, too. That felt kind of nice. The tips of his ears were probably pinkening.

  The Jocks were up at bat. Golfer was up first.

  It became clear fairly early on that the Docs took this far more seriously than the Jocks. Adam’s team hadn’t attempted to practice together. They had been introduced shortly before the game, and Adam figured they were supposed to rely on their natural athleticism to get them through the day. The Docs, meanwhile, had been stretching, clapping their hands to their chests in some sort of complicated handshake, and visualizing—with the exception of Helen. They engaged in some other physiologically tested exercises. It was kind of impressive. They probably had been pretty good players in high school. A few thought they could really take on a group of professional athletes. They certainly were dressed like a more cohesive team than the Jocks, right down to their surgeon-green uniforms—well, again with the exception of Helen.