Chapter 3
Drew
Drew, who was used to flying on private planes, or at least in comfortable and expensive classes on commercial flights, was more than a little horrified by the traveling experience of getting from Boston to Orion, Michigan.
Estelle had arranged it all. First, a flight from Boston to O’Hare in Chicago, then from O’Hare to Gerald R.
Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan, then a small plane from Grand Rapids up to Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City, Michigan.
The little airport in northern Michigan had a sort of charm to it, which was mostly lost on Drew.
He was too focused on not being recognized, which had been his main goal whenever he was in public, since the end of the NHL playoff season.
He wanted to get away from all the frustration and pain of his normal life.
Estelle had had questions about his sudden need for anonymity and solitude, but she hadn’t pressed him after he indicated that he wanted to keep his reasons to himself.
She was good like that and said that she could figure out a way to keep his presence in Orion hidden from the media.
It would be up to him, though, to maintain his anonymity when he was there.
Estelle had rented a house for him near the Lake (Drew had already learned that Lake should be capitalized when referring to Lake Michigan).
It was owned by a wealthy couple in their eighties who had once used it as a summer house but now preferred to live in Florida.
They used it now as a source of passive income, renting it to summer vacationers.
Estelle said they were lucky to get it so last-minute.
Drew rented a car at the airport and drove along the coast from Cherry Capital Airport, entering Leelanau County.
He had never been to Michigan, and he was amazed by its beauty.
The beaches on the coast were real beaches, with bright, clean sand and water that stretched for miles.
The woods that lined the coast were thick with pines and pale green leafy trees, and he spotted a number of pastel-colored cottages jutting up to the water.
Most were small vacation homes, hardly more than trailer homes, but they were cute and inviting, and he often saw families with children on the sand or in the water.
In some ways, it reminded him of his childhood in Alton, New Hampshire.
The prominence of the water, the thick trees and woods, and the relative wildness of the landscape compared to a city.
It was all very different from Boston, which had been his home for the last decade, ever since he had joined the NHL.
He decided he liked it. He would have to let Estelle know that she had done a good job picking this place for his summer.
This was definitely a place he could spend a few months recovering physically and emotionally.
His knee would be healed soon, but his heart would take more time.
The GPS on his phone directed him to his rental house. He lost service a few times, but the roads up in northern Michigan were simple, and he didn’t get lost.
He took highway M-22 down from Traverse City, into Leelanau County, and to the town of Orion.
Just before entering the town proper, his GPS directed him back towards the Lake, where he took a narrow two-lane road to a private neighborhood on the water.
There were several large houses, which couldn’t properly be called cottages, built up on stilts on the hill that led from the road down to the beach.
The houses were mansions more than they were cottages.
He counted ten in total, well-spaced from each other for privacy, and each done in a different architectural style.
He parked his rented Toyota RAV4 in his short driveway, which turned directly off the main road. The mansion-cottage that rose in front of him made him smile. Yes, this would do.
It was very large, three stories rising up from the road, and likely a basement level descending down the hill.
It was a timber frame mansion, built of honey-colored wood and blocks of gray stone, with an amber-brown roof and several stone chimneys.
Much of the landscape around the house was dune grass or wild flora, but some of it had been landscaped: delicate flower beds and well-trimmed hedges.
Drew turned off his car, took his two suitcases from the backseat, and walked up to the large front door, which was painted red and had an old-fashioned bronze knocker.
The email Estelle had forwarded him provided him with a code for a lockbox next to the door, which he used. He found a key in the lockbox, which he used to open the front door.
Inside, the house was just as beautiful—and almost majestic—as the outside.
There were high ceilings, hardwood floors, and art on the walls that evoked the sublime of nature.
The foyer had a staircase to the left that led upstairs, and a long hallway before him that opened into a vast, high-ceilinged living room with a massive fireplace.
He decided the fireplace would be nice if the evenings got cold.
Glass doors on the other side of the living room led to a large wooden deck that looked down over the beach and the Lake. He waited to go out there; he wanted the first moment on the deck to be something peaceful, after he had unpacked.
Next, he found the kitchen (which wasn’t hard to do, because it was so large), where there was a printed and laminated welcome packet from the Floridian couple.
He skimmed through it, finding the Wi-Fi password, and information about the cleaning company that would come once a week, and the phone number and email of a man named Evan DeVries, who apparently managed the property when the Floridians were gone (which was now most of the year).
Drew joined the Wi-Fi, saved Evan’s number, and followed the instructions on the laminated packet to find the bedrooms. These were on the second floor of the house (the third floor consisted of a game room, an in-home theater, and a well-equipped home gym), and he was told he could stay in any of the rooms he liked.
There were seven bedrooms in total, two of which had bunk beds (he supposed these were for visiting grandkids).
Most of the bedrooms had a beachy or nautical theme, except for the primary bedroom, which had lapis-blue wallpaper, a king-sized bed with a linen duvet, and dark oak bookshelves on the wall, fully stocked with paperbacks and hardbacks.
Drew slid his suitcases against the wall by the double-wide closet, deciding he would unpack later.
He took out a single change of clothes: white linen shorts, a boxy-fit olive-green polo shirt, and black summer loafers.
When Drew had been a younger NHL player, he hadn’t cared about clothes, and almost always looked like he was heading to the gym.
After his twenty-fifth birthday, though, Estelle had hired a stylist for him, revamped his wardrobe, and injected him with a taste for simple but classy fashion.
He laid out the clothes on the large bed, fetched his Dopp kit, and went to the large ensuite bathroom. It had white marble floors and dark blue walls, with a large claw-foot tub and a glass-walled shower that looked big enough to fit half of the Minutemen.
Drew dropped his Dopp kit on the vanity, stripped off his clothes, and stepped into the large shower.
There were wide windows in the shower that looked out over the beach, positioned so that when you were in the shower, you almost felt like you were outside, though no one from out there could see you intimately.
The shower was well-stocked with expensive products, and he took his time showering off the staleness of the plane. When he was done, he dried himself with a cloud-like towel and dressed in the clothes he’d laid out.
All of this he did relatively automatically.
It had been only a few days since the win of the Crawford Cup, and he hadn’t really been in contact with his teammates from the Boston Minutemen.
A few had reached out to check in with him about his injury, and he’d responded with a few polite words saying that he was recovering faster than expected, but was taking some time away from the city to give his mind space to rest. His teammates, also being professional athletes in a high-intensity sport, understood the importance of letting your mind recover as much as your body, and didn’t press him about it.
He didn’t have many other friends in Boston, and the few that he had didn’t bother (yet, at least) to check and see if he was still in town.
Most of them knew that he liked to take a vacation during the offseason.
The only person Drew refused to respond to was Quentin Hartley. Quentin hadn’t said anything immediately after the game, but earlier that morning, when Drew had been at Boston Logan, waiting for his flight to Chicago, his phone had buzzed with a message from Quentin:
Quentin: Hey, can we talk? I’m sorry about how things went down. I hope your knee is doing okay.
Drew ignored the message. He was glad Quentin was sorry, but that didn’t mean he wanted to talk.
In a perfect world, Quentin would be transferred to another NHL team, and Drew would never have to personally interact with him again.
Truthfully, the thought of being on the same team as Quentin going forward made Drew ill.
“You need to stop moping,” he told himself out loud. He was in a lovely small town, far away from his problems. He had a nice house for the summer, and the weather today was good. He should do something to get his mind off his troubles.
Back in the kitchen, he found the laminated packet from the Floridians and turned to the last page, where they had listed things visitors could do in Orion.
Visit the Turtle Dunes National Lakeshore
See the historic Orion Lighthouse
Explore the nature trails around the Turtle Dunes State Park