by Chloe Liese
Ren’s smile changes, his eyes dip to my mouth, like he’s waiting for me to say more. But it’s all I have. Finally, he says, “Of course.”
With one more fluid turn, Ren strolls away and pulls the door closed behind him. It’s only when I hear it click shut that I realize how weirdly easy that felt, having him here and how uneasy I feel now that he’s gone.
This is bad. Very, very bad.
6
Ren
Playlist: “Neighborhood #2,” Arcade Fire
“Bergman!” one of the guys yells from the kitchen. “I can’t find the honey mustard!”
I come in from the deck with another tray of grilled chicken. “I’m going to take a wild guess and assume you didn’t check the refrigerator.”
Lin frowns. “Why would I do that?”
Sliding the tray onto the range, I yank open the fridge and pull out a slew of condiments, including honey mustard, and shove them into his arms.
“Wow,” he says.
I pat his arm. “You wear your bachelorhood on your sleeve, my friend.”
Lin gives me a look. “Says the guy who doesn’t even look at women.”
“Please. It’s called subtlety. Unlike you, I’ve learned not to drool at them. And when it’s time to settle down, I’ll even know how to navigate my own kitchen.”
Spinning Lin, I shove him toward the table where all the food’s laid out and then survey the state of my home. It’s currently tipping the scales from quiet beachfront oasis to frat house. I shudder. Like my mom, I’m a neurotically tidy person. It’s one of the few things I share in common with most of my siblings, except for Freya and Viggo, who, like Dad, are unrepentant slobs.
The entire team is here at my place after practice. I’m feeding them before we hop a flight later tonight to Minnesota and start our first stretch on the road for playoffs. Virtually all the guys live in Manhattan Beach, so it isn’t unusual to get together here, but there’s a specific reason for this gathering: superstition.
Two years ago, we barely clawed our way to the playoffs. Tensions were high, the guys were a nervous wreck, and Rob, our captain, for the first time turned to me for help. I’d recently been named alternate captain, which was a huge honor after just finishing my rookie season.
“I need a distraction for the guys,” he said. “Not more pep talks or watching game tape. Help me get them out of their heads.”
So, I did what he asked. I invited everyone over to my place for a night of distraction.
It was…not what they were expecting. There was no poker. No cornhole. No bro games. There were twenty-two printouts of the “rude mechanicals” scenes from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a smorgasbord of Swedish food.
I’d been prepared for skepticism and awkward silence, because I’m me and I’ve encountered that plenty of times in my life. The guys were wary, until they started eating and then devouring food, and Rob asked me to explain what this was all about as he flipped through the pages, a grin tugging at his mouth.
“I know we’re under pressure,” I told the team. “But there’s a reason we got where we are. We’ve been doing what we’re supposed to, and we’ll keep doing what we’ve done well. So tonight, we’re just going to get out of our heads. A little distraction. Lightening up, laughing at ourselves.”
The guys looked nervous as well as self-conscious when I assigned parts and explained the setting of both scenes in the play—the first scene, in which a half-dozen skilled tradesmen—the “rude mechanicals”—decide to enter a theater competition held by the king of Athens, and the second, in which they actually perform the tragedy, which is well beyond their understanding, with entirely comedic results.
I could tell they were apprehensive, but if any bit of Shakespeare was going to work for a newbie, it was this. Not four lines into reading, laughter began. Flubbed language, falsetto voices affected for females, bad English accents, and countless mispronunciations. The undeniably ridiculous physical comedy that unfolded as a bunch of athletes intuitively performed the scenes. The aha moments when they got the humor. It led to grown men crying, we were laughing so hard.
That night, everyone ate well, got their minds off the pressure, and left full and happy. Maybe even a little more comfortable with each other in a new way. And then we won our way straight to the Stanley Cup.
Thus, a ritual was born. Because hockey players are truly some of the most superstitious athletes you’ll meet. If they took a crap backwards on a toilet before the night of their first hat trick, you better believe they’ll be pulling that stunt before every game without even blinking.
We read Shakespeare before the first away playoff game that led to our first Cup in far too long. So, now, this is what we do before we hit the road for our first away playoff game: eat my mom’s best Swedish recipes and read the “rude mechanicals” scenes.
“Moreaux.” Andy pokes François. “Swap parts with me.”
“Get fucked,” François tells him. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to play Thisbe?”
Andy pouts. “Besides Halloween, Rude Mechanical Day is the one day of the year that I get to dress adventurously and not get crap for it.”
Rob starts down the line of food, piling up his plate. “Not true. You dress adventurously regularly during the off-season, and none of us say a word. That bikini you wear on the beach belongs on a much less hairy ass.”
“Hey.” Andy glares at him. “It’s a Speedo. And it’s European. The ladies like it.”
François snorts. “Trust me, Andrew. I am European, and both I and these ladies you speak of would prefer if you kept to your American swim trunks.”
“Okay, let’s eat,” I call to the stragglers outside and in the living room.
The guys descend on the table like hyenas on a carcass, quickly draining platters of food. They trickle into my living room, which is a wide-open space with a vaulted ceiling made cozy with built-in bookshelves, pale blue-green walls like the ocean outside, and an expansive dove-gray L-shaped sofa bracketed by mid-century end tables.
Throw in a couple of ivory oversized chairs and a huge wool rug in coordinating colors to absorb sound, and it’s my favorite room in the house, besides my bedroom. I had few feelings about the décor, so I let my brother Oliver pick everything out for me. He has a good eye and ended up putting together a space that I really like.
There’s plenty of room, and the guys are used to making themselves at home here, so they settle in tight on the couch and chairs, even cross-legged on the floor at the coffee table.
“Damn, you can cook, Bergman,” Rob mumbles around a bite of food.
I sit in the last open spot, which is next to him, and dig into my plate. “Thanks. I’m glad you like it.”
“Like it?” He chuckles. “I’d eat this over anything they serve at those fancy places Liz likes.” After a moment in which he demolishes a shrimp sandwich in three bites, he leans in a bit and drops his voice. “Speaking of Liz. I was wondering, would you mind giving me a cooking lesson or two? Once the season’s done, I want to make the wife a nice meal, start pulling my weight a bit more at home. I’m going to have my parents take the kids for a few days once this is over. Just to show her how much I appreciate her putting up with the insanity.”
I grin. “Sure. Anything you want to learn in particular?”
“Steak. Maybe mushroom risotto, too? She always gets that when we’re out.” He glances up at me and catches my smile. “What? You think it’s lame, don’t you?”
“No way. I think it’s exactly what a guy should do for his partner after a long stretch of her shouldering all the home responsibilities. I’d love to help out.”
Before Rob can respond, something crashes in the kitchen.
“Shit!” someone yells. “Rennnnn.”
I groan. “They’re like children.”
“They’re worse,” Rob says. “At least worse than mine.”
I stand on a sigh and shove a shrimp sandwich in my mou
th. “I’m coming!”
“Hey.” I snatch Kris’s phone out of his hands and shove it in my pocket. “This is a phone-free zone. We agreed everyone does their best acting when they’re not worried about showing up on Twitter in a toga saying, ‘O dainty duck! O dear!’”
“It’s blackmail gold. No, platinum,” Kris whines, lunging unsuccessfully for my pocket which now holds his phone. “I need it, Ren.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “What are the rules of theater in this house?”
Kris pouts. “Respect the story’s intent. Make your fellow actors look good. Foster a safe space for performance.”
“Thank you.” I gesture to François. “Continue, please.”
“Merci.” François begins to bow but freezes halfway through and switches to a curtsy. True commitment to character, right there. This is the moment where Pyramus and Thisbe, two lovers meeting in the garden and separated by circumstance—a Romeo and Juliet homage, no doubt—meet for a clandestine kiss.
“Right.” Tyler clears his throat and adjusts his helmet. He’s reading Pyramus this year. “‘O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black! O night, which ever art when day is not! O night, O night! alack, alack, alack, I fear my Thisby's promise is forgot! And thou, O wall’—” Tyler looks around. “Where’s the fucking wall?”
Andy bounds in. “He had to take a piss.”
François sighs.
Andy sweeps the blanket off of my couch, wraps it around his shoulders so it drapes nicely, and extends his arms. “There. Sorry.”
Tyler lifts his script and finds his place. “‘O sweet, O lovely wall, That stand'st between her father's ground and mine! Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall, Show me thy chink’—”
Andy lifts his hand, joining his thumb and forefinger, then Tyler continues.
“‘—To blink through with mine eye! Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this! But what see I? No Thisby do I see.’”
Tyler rolls up his script and whacks Andy over the head. Andy yelps.
“‘O wicked wall,’” Tyler yells, “‘through whom I see no bliss! Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!’” he says, whacking Andy a few more times.
A roll of laughter travels the room. Some of the guys whistle and hoot as François saunters to the other side of Andy’s blanketed arm.
“Maddox.” Kris lobs a pillow at his head. “It’s your line, asshole.”
Matt slowly glances up from a magazine he’s been flipping through. “I’m sorry, where are we?”
Everyone groans.
“Why’d you give him Theseus?” Rob whispers from my right.
I shrug. “Trying to extend an olive branch. Obviously, a wasted effort.”
“I hope he gets traded,” Rob mutters. I keep my mouth shut, but Rob knows I feel the same way, and I’m not the only one. Nobody likes Maddox. He’s made enemies of all of us.
Kris stomps over to Matt. “I’ll read it if you won’t—”
“I’ll. Do it.” Matt glares up at him, then delivers in an underwhelming monotone, “‘The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse again.’”
A collective sigh of disappointment. I have to stifle a laugh. The guys get so into it now that we’re a few years in, they’re beside themselves when someone messes up. Tyler says Pyramus’s line, and then it’s François’s moment.
He delivers his lines in a French-accented, perfectly over-the-top falsetto, before Tyler puckers his lips near Andy’s hand, where his thumb and pointer create the chink. “‘O kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!’”
François leans to purposefully misplace his kiss—his next line is supposed to be, “I kiss the wall's hole, not your lips at all”—but before he can, Andy lowers his hand so that Tyler and François actually smash mouths.
An eruption of entertained oooohhhs echoes in the room. Tyler glares murder at Andy. François grabs Andy by the blanket around his neck, and before I can even step in to avoid disaster, François tackles him to the ground. Tyler jumps in, and soon, it’s a mosh pit of brawling, hyped-up hockey players.
“Guys!” I yell. Kris hurtles past me, flinging himself on top of the growing pile of bodies. I drop my head and sigh. “This is why we can’t have nice things.”
The plane ride is uncharacteristically sullen. Rob and I had a hell of a time pulling people apart. Most of them were just cranky after it, but a few of the guys came out the worse for wear. François hasn’t stopped scowling, and Tyler, still horrified by the kiss, keeps rinsing his mouth with water, then spitting into an empty container. Andy has a somewhat-deserved black eye. Kris has a split lip—serves him right for jumping headlong into violence. Thankfully, hockey players don’t draw much notice for looking beat up.
Rob’s passed out in the seat next to me, snoring. I have As You Like It in hand because that’s up next for Shakespeare Club, and it’s a good distraction. I’m trying not to be entirely aware of Frankie, who sits across the aisle, flipping through her phone, with her laptop up and running as well.
Her hair’s down, dark and smooth as melted bitter chocolate. She’s in relatively casual clothes—black, slim pants, a fuzzy gray sweater that looks like a feather duster—Freya has one in ice blue, so I’m guessing they’re in right now—and her sneakers, black and silver as always. Her cane rests between her legs, and she weaves her fingers through her necklace as she glances between screens.
My already weak resistance evaporates as I drop my book to the lap tray. “Plotting world domination?”
She peers up and locks eyes with me. A slow grin warms her face. “But of course.”
I feel a blush heating my cheeks. Thank God for the playoff beard somewhat hiding it. How can I be so calm on the ice, in press rooms, in front of everyone else, but I’m a blushing schoolboy when it comes to her?
“You’re staring at me,” she says.
I blink rapidly. “Um. I. What?”
Frankie lifts a hand self-consciously to her face. “Do I have powdered sugar on my face or something?”
Earlier on the flight I had to studiously not observe Frankie eat a box of powdered mini donuts. I made sure I didn’t watch her lick every single fingertip. And I definitely didn’t put down my lap tray to cover a growing problem crushed against my fly after watching each long finger slip into her mouth, then slide out with an erotic pop.
I lean across the aisle, and don’t you know, God’s looking out for me. There’s a smudge of powdery white right on her cheekbone. I wipe it away and fight the urge to lick my thumb clean. “Just there.”
Her smile deepens, making the dimple appear. “Thanks. Now, how about you tell me why everyone’s acting like we’re heading into arctic hell to get our asses handed to us.”
“Because we are heading into arctic hell, probably to get our asses handed to us.” Saint Paul, Minnesota, has a hell of a cold front tearing through it for early April, and the Wild aren’t playing around this year. There’s a fair chance we’ll lose.
She lifts one dark, arched eyebrow. “Seriously, you’re all so frowny. What happened? You guys disappeared after dry-land, then you show up like this. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that the past few years you all drop off the radar right before our first on-the-road playoff game.”
She taps her finger against her lips and narrows her eyes. Like always, her nails are painted glossy black. The thought of those claws scraping down my torso tightens everything low in my stomach. Never have I been so grateful for airplane lap trays.
“It’s just a little ritual,” I finally manage. “It got out of hand this year.”
“Let me guess. Kris had something to do with it. Maybe Tyler.” She lowers her voice and leans closer, infusing the air with her perfume. “Definitely Andy.”
“Uh.” I swallow thickly, trying to think straight. It’s hard when I’m this close to her. Just her scent alone scrambles my brain, the clean whisper of evening air and orchid blossoms. For the longest time I couldn’t pinpoint what
made Frankie smell so good. It drove me nuts. Until last summer, after putting away leftovers, watching the sun set from my parents’ kitchen window, when I smelled Frankie. A cool summer breeze blew past the night-scented orchids that my sister Ziggy had taken on in her loneliness as the last kid home. They were full and fragrant, their blossoms open. That was it, her soft perfume, exactly. If I closed my eyes, I’d have sworn she was standing beside me.
If only.
Frankie drops her finger from her mouth and leans back. “Hm. You’re good at hiding things, Bergman, I’ll give you that. But I’m going to get the truth out of you one of these days.”
She has no idea how likely that is. Or how nervous I am to hear what she’ll say when the truth finally does come out.
7
Frankie
Playlist: “New Rush,” Gin Wigmore
I didn’t always know I wanted to work in professional sports, but I’ve always loved watching them. Some of my most treasured memories of my dad are sitting on his lap, watching the Mets on our tiny TV. We’d snuggle on the sofa in our Queens apartment that we shared with Nonna, and squint to try to spot the ball when Carlos Delgado sent it soaring across the field.
Gabby and Ma would watch from the cutout in the cabinetry over the sink as they cooked dinner, and we’d all yell at the screen. Nonna would say bad words in Italian that made Daddy clap his hands over my ears, and Ma would hoot in laughter.
Sports were integral to our family. Gabby and I played softball and basketball. We went to baseball games when we could afford it. But it wasn’t until high school that I fell in love with hockey. Gabby’s then boyfriend, now husband, Tony, was friends with one of the players’ brothers and got us tickets to the Islanders. From that game on, I was obsessed. The game was grace and power, it was a dance of agility and grueling physical discipline.
That’s when I knew that in some way, I always wanted hockey to be a part of my life. I went to school, got a degree in digital communication and media relations, went through the school’s intern program and got placed with none other than the Islanders—yeah, I freaked out, too—then moved on to an entry-level PR assistant position with them after graduation.
