“It’s good,” I say. “I’m just getting to know it really.”
“You should take my number and give me a call. I can show you around.” She smiles at me and inches even closer. “I know my way around.”
“I’m sure you do.” I smile at her, and thankfully, I’m saved when a kid starts crying. When she turns her head, I run away to the side where I sit in a chair and just take in the backyard.
An hour later, most of the kids and parents have left, and the only ones lingering seem to be the immediate family. I look at my watch and see that it’s almost dinnertime. I also realize I haven’t wanted to use today. I spent the whole day socializing, and not once did I feel the need to get high. Not fucking once. Also, no one treated me differently or watched what they said or how they acted. As I look around, I realize I haven’t felt comfortable in my skin in the longest time.
“There you are. I was wondering if you had left without saying goodbye,” Vivienne says, finding me again, and before I can even answer, Zoe walks over.
“Vivienne, there you are,” Zoe says as she walks over, wearing her dress again. “The car just got here.”
“Already?” Vivienne says. “Let me go and get my things.” She walks away from us.
“Are you guys going back to the city?” I ask her, and she looks up at me, and I can see that she got some sun on her nose.
“Yeah.” She nods. “Would you like a ride?”
“Yeah. That would be great.” I smile at her and look around to see if anyone is close by. “Listen, about yesterday …”
“It’s all right. We all have crappy days,” she says. “Today is mine. I swear I’m never drinking wine again.”
I laugh at her now. “I bet you’ll forget that by next Saturday.”
“Wow, you really give me credit. I was thinking by Tuesday,” she says, laughing. She stops talking beside me and looks over at Justin. He’s just taken his shirt off and has fingernail marks all down his back.
“Mom, Justin got attacked!” Zara shouts, and Justin looks at her weirdly. Matthew goes up to him, turns him around, and whispers something in his ear. He puts his shirt right back on. “Cover it up.” Their mom stands up and then walks to him, and all you can see is Justin shrugging his shoulders.
“I’m ready!” Vivienne yells, and then Zoe looks at me.
I say goodbye to Matthew and his wife, thanking her for having me, and make plans to be on the ice with Max and Evan the next day. “Can I sit all the way in the back?” Vivienne asks, looking at the Suburban that has come to get us. “I need to lie down.” The man stands by the side with the door open and nods at Vivienne as she makes her way into the back. The driver puts the seat down, and I get in and look out the window, seeing Zoe carry her big bag with two bottles of water under her arm.
“Here,” she says, tossing the water at Vivienne. “My mother didn’t want you to get thirsty.” She laughs and then puts her bag in next to me and then sits down. The car door closes. “We are going to drop Vivienne off first if that’s okay.”
“I’m the one tagging along,” I tell her, and she just nods. She then takes out her phone and her fingers move a million miles a minute. “Do you work every day?”
“No,” she says, not looking up. “Or maybe I do.” She finally looks up. “If a deal is on the line, I work every day. If not, I take Sunday off.”
“That makes sense,” I tell her and then look out the window when she looks back down at her phone.
“Look at this,” she says, moving the bag next to me and coming over with her phone. “It’s going on the market tomorrow.”
“Then how do you know?” I ask her, and she shrugs.
“Someone sent me the listing. It’s in Tribeca. Two bedrooms, three bathrooms, three point two million,” she tells me, all excited. “One thousand eight hundred square feet of living area.” I grab her phone and swipe through the pictures. “Are you busy tomorrow?”
“I’m available in the afternoon. I have work in the morning,” I tell her, and then she grabs the phone back, typing something in.
“Okay, I told him to hold off on posting it until tomorrow,” she says, looking down at her phone. “I’m going to owe him one.” She looks at me. “Which means you’re going to owe me DF.”
I look at her shocked. “I know what DP is. I definitely don’t know what DF stands for.”
She laughs hysterically now. “Oh my God, DF means double favors. Get your head out of the gutter.” She looks at me, her eyes a crystal blue.
“Double favor,” I repeat, getting it now. “But explain to me again how I owe you now,” I ask her as the SUV turns a corner and she falls onto me.
“I’m going to have to go on a date with this guy for keeping the listing a secret until tomorrow,” she says honestly, and I ignore the little ping in the pit of my stomach. “And I don’t really like him because he’s creepy and oily.” I watch her face as she explains what oily means. I don’t push her away from me, which I know is mistake number one. For the next forty minutes, she doesn’t move from beside me, her body heat on me, and her smell all around me. I pretend to be interested in her story, but the only thing I look at is the way her lips move, or the way she always uses her hands while she talks. She tells me story after story about all the times he’s tried to make her owe him. When we drop Vivienne off, I look around and then open my maps app while they hug goodbye. Knowing I need to get as far away from the two of us being alone as humanly possible.
When she gets back in the SUV, I look at her. “I’m going to get off here. It’s a forty-minute walk, and it’s a nice night,” I say, not disclosing the real reason I want to get out of here. She tells the driver to pull over, but she doesn’t get out like she did with Vivienne.
“I’ll send you the address and the time,” she says, and I just nod when the SUV pulls away. I make sure it’s out of sight before I make my way over to the church on the corner. I walk in the side door and down the stairs with the smell of incense all around. The wooden walls lead into the light room that even smells dusty. The curtains on the window look like they were white, then yellow, and are now a tint of brown. Hand-drawn artwork sticks to the white concrete walls.
I walk in and spot the circle of chairs; the meeting has already started, so I do my best to sit quietly while the woman tells us a story about how she was one digit away from scoring her next fix. But then her son called her, and his face appeared on the phone. When she finishes talking, the man running the meeting looks at me and smiles.
I nod at him and start. “My name is Viktor, and I’m ninety-four days sober.” They welcome me. “I went to a party today.” I look down at my hands. “Not that kind of party, a family party. I was there for six hours and not once did I think about getting high.” I smile. “Not once did I get the itch, but I know the night is coming, and with it comes the devils.” I look around while everyone just nods.
“One day, you’ll see the guy before the recovering addict,” the man in charge says, “and it’s going to be glorious.”
The rest of the meeting is uneventful. When we finish, I don’t stick around for the bad coffee at the back of the room nor do I talk to anyone. I walk out and make my way home, enjoying the semi quiet of the night. I walk into the loft and don’t bother turning on a light while I make my way to the shower. The night is a success if you count sleeping for four hours straight a good night. I mean, I can’t complain, and even if I do, no one is there to listen. I don’t get out of bed; I just toss and turn, and somewhere around three a.m., I fall back asleep, jumping out of bed when my alarm goes off.
I’m so excited to be getting on the ice today that I skip breakfast and make my way to the arena. I don’t know what I’m expecting when I walk in, but what I’m not expecting is for it to be so empty. I mean, no surprise here the preseason only starts next week. The tryouts are already underway, but contract players are asked to show up starting next week. I get up and make my way to the kitchen, seeing that at least the c
hef is there and so is Max.
“You’re here bright and early,” he says to me, grabbing the shake that the chef just handed to him. “Bernie,” he asks the chef, “is there enough left for another shake?”
“Yes,” he says, turning and getting a glass to pour me one.
“Thank you,” I say to him and then take a sip. “What’s in here?”
“Fruit,” he says. “I tried the green celery thing.” He grimaces. “Not my cup of tea.”
“In LA, it’s all about the juices,” I tell him. “Celery, kale, beet root.”
“LA is its own brand of living,” Max says, and I nod. “Now let’s get on the ice and see how shaky the legs are.”
I laugh at him. “Are you talking about me or yourself?”
“Both,” he says, laughing. We walk back into the dressing room, and I sit at my place. I undress and start getting into my gear. When I slip my feet into my skates, it’s almost like a sigh of relief. Everything is like it was the first time I started skating. “I’ll be on the ice,” Max says to me. Getting up, he grabs his gloves and helmet and walks toward the door.
Slipping the blue jersey on, I look down and see New York in the middle of it in red letters. “Don’t fuck this up,” I say to myself, grabbing my helmet and gloves and making my way out. I stop where all the sticks are lined up against the wall. Each of them are separated by player, so I grab one of my custom sticks and make my way through the door to the arena. I look around for the first time; the stands are empty, but it’s a huge building. It’s quiet, so eerily quiet, and when I glide onto the ice, it’s like that first time. The smell of the dry ice hitting you right away. I don’t know why I thought I would forget how to skate. I don’t know why I thought it would be like that first time when I was three, and I couldn’t get my skates to skate.
I skate around the rink a couple of times, getting my skates used to the ice. Max is taking shots at the goal down on the other side. “Well, well, well …” I look up to see Matthew. “You don’t look too bad,” he says, pushing me, and I smile and see he’s in full gear.
“Yeah, I didn’t fall yet,” I tell him, holding the stick in my hand and then seeing someone else get on the ice. There is no mistaking who it is; the man is a legend and his skating is just as good now as it was when he retired.
“Hey there,” Cooper says, skating to us and then stopping. My heart speeds up just a touch as I stand on the ice with him; it’s every little boys’ dream, and now I can proudly say I did it. “Smell that,” he says, lifting his head. “I used to call it freedom,” he says to me and Matthew. Someone else joins us on the ice.
“You aren’t allowed on the ice,” Max says to the guy. “Traitor. Take that jersey off before I wipe my ass with it,” he jokes with Justin who skates to the four of us, wearing his Edmonton jersey.
“What are you doing here?” Max asks Justin when he joins us.
“I had to escape my mother,” Justin says, then looks at his dad. “Sorry, Dad, but she was all over me last night about the nail marks.”
“If you don’t want her all over you, then you don’t come home with those marks,” Cooper tells him. “That is step one.”
“Okay, enough of this bullshit,” Matthew says. “Let’s see what he’s got.” He looks at me.
“We rustled up some of the guys,” he says, and I finally see more and more people stepping on the ice. “Thought we could play some three on three.”
I nod at him, looking around the ice. First time really back on it since that disastrous game, and I’m going to be playing with greatness. I’m intimidated, but I am not going to let them see it. “That sounds like fun. Think you can handle it, old man?” I wink at him and then skate away to shake off the nervousness in my stomach. Max’s laughter fills the quiet arena, and then I skate to the bench where Evan’s sitting. I skate side to side to get a feel of the skates and to make them not as sharp.
“You look rough,” I tell him and see him yawning. He just shakes his head.
“Zara wanted fried pickles at three a.m.” He looks at me. “You know where I can get fried pickles in Long Island?” he asks me, and I shake my head. “Nowhere. I had to make them myself. And she didn’t even eat any.” He grabs the water bottle that he brought out and sprays it in his mouth and then on his face.
Matthew comes over with some practice jerseys. “I can’t wear a New York jersey,” Justin says. “Someone might take a picture of me.”
“I’m going to take a picture of my skate up your ass,” Matthew says. “Tuck it into your pants.”
I skate to the right of Evan and take my spot, waiting for everyone to get in place. I’m so nervous I might puke. I haven’t been this nervous since I got drafted. I skate in circles while I move my head side to side. “Relax, it’s not a real game,” Evan says, and I just nod at him. One of the coaches comes out with a puck and a whistle, and he drops the puck. I try to skate around Justin, but he’s on my ass the whole time. I try to deke him from left to right, but with every turn, he’s on me. I try to protect the puck and pass it over, but it gets intercepted, and we hustle back to the other end of the ice. The first shift is rough; my heart speeds up, and I’m out of breath by the time I get to the bench and switch with the second line.
I watch them play and see Matthew go toe-to-toe with his father. He tries to read his father, but he doesn’t, and just like that, he has a breakaway and scores with his back hand. He isn’t even on my team, and we get up and tap the board with our sticks. I climb over the boards and take my place again on the right of Evan, and this time, I don’t wait for him to win the face-off, I just take off to the left of Justin. Luckily for me, Evan wins the face-off, and I’m just a touch out of reach from Justin when the defense guy sends me the puck. Landing on the blade of my stick, I handle it like glass, gently skating into the zone with Justin so close I can feel him. I make it to the left and then slip the puck back to the outside of the blade, and when I’m just on the side of the goalie, I lift it just a touch and it falls behind him. I know it’s just a pickup game, but that goal is everything.
Chapter Ten
Zoe
I run out of the house and down the stairs to the waiting car. I smile at the new driver and get in, putting my purse next to me. I am running late, which I never do, but I just closed one of my biggest deals, and I’m on cloud nine.
I send Viktor a text that I’m on way, and he doesn’t reply.
When I finally pull up in front of the address, I spot him on his phone. He is wearing black jeans and a white T-shirt with a leather jacket and boots. I swear, if you didn’t know any better, you would think he was a biker. When the car finally comes to a stop, I grab my purse and get out, smiling at him when he looks up. “Sorry I’m late. It was a last-minute deal, and I couldn’t leave.”
“I just got here,” he tells me and puts the phone in the back pocket of his jeans. Being this close to him, I can already smell his musky cologne.
“Let’s get in there.” I turn and lead the way up, ignoring that I’m even thinking about him when I pull the gray door right next to a bookstore. “This is on the fifth floor,” I tell him over my shoulder, buzzing the number 5E, and the door buzzes to let us into the lobby. I look around and see a sitting area on the right, and when you walk in a bit more, you see that the mailboxes are on the left. I walk to the elevator located right in front of the door. We get off on the fifth floor and see all the doors are painted with gold numbers on them. When we get to the apartment, I knock and then turn to Viktor. “Put your poker face on,” I tell him. “This guy can smell when you want things, and if he knows you want this, he won’t budge on his price.”
“I don’t know if I have a poker face,” he whispers, and I look over at him and see his face looking at me a bit scared. He closes his mouth and looks away and then back at me. No matter how he puts his face or how he looks at you, he’s hot as fuck, but I cannot tell him that. “How was that?”
“Just don’t make eye contact,”
I tell him. The door opens, and my poker face comes out along with a fake smile. “George,” I say when he opens the door. I take him in from head to toe and cringe inwardly. He’s wearing a custom-made suit, which isn’t the problem; it’s the amount of hair gel he puts in his hair. You see exactly where the comb brushed through it. His fake tan makes me almost gag in my mouth because he looks almost orange. This is why he looks so greasy.
“There she is,” he says, stepping away from the door to let us into the apartment. Viktor looks around. I take in the walls right away with the exposed red bricks, the ceiling high with wooden beams sticking out and a skylight in the middle of the room. The sunroofs on the ceiling bring in the extra light. It’s almost got a loft feeling. “This must be your exclusive client,” he says to Viktor. “I’m George.” He puts his hand out, and Viktor takes it.
“Viktor,” he introduces himself and then drops George’s hand.
“This is nice,” I say, walking around, taking in everything. “The windows bring in a natural light,” I say, walking over to the three windows at the far end of the room. “It makes the room seem bigger than it actually is.” I look over at Viktor and I point at the huge mirror against the wall.. “That is why they put up mirrors against the wall.” Turning to smile at George. “It’s also a four-minute walk from the subway, so the traffic is lighter in this area.”
“This is the living and dining room,” George says, and I look at the long wooden table that is on the left-hand side of the room. “All furniture is an option,” he tells us, and I look over at Viktor, who is looking at me.
“I like that the kitchen is open and leads out to the living and dining room,” Viktor says when he walks to the kitchen just off the dining room. “It’s a good size.” I take in the kitchen that is big for New York and actually has some counter space. “It isn’t stated that appliances come with the apartment?”
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