Chapter 15 Hájek
After practice, Marchetti approaches me in the locker room with something in his hands, which makes me slightly nervous because I don't know Marchetti well enough to predict what this would be.
"Hájek." He sits on the bench next to my stall. "You're working on your English, right?"
"Every day," I say. This is true. My English improves because there is no alternative.
"Okay, so." He reaches into his bag and pulls out a paperback. Hockey player on the cover, dramatic lighting, a title I can read but don't recognize. "This might help. It's, uh, very conversational. Good vocabulary. Lots of dialogue."
I take the book. It's light, well-worn, spine cracked in several places. Someone has read it more than once? "Thank you. What is it about?"
"Hockey. It's about hockey players." He pauses. "There's also some romance. Between the hockey."
"Romance is good for vocabulary," I say, because this seems like the right thing to say and also because it's probably true. Emotions require many words.
"Exactly. That's exactly right." Marchetti looks pleased in a way that seems larger than the moment warrants.
Behind him, Thompson is tying his shoes with his face turned away from me.
His shoulders are shaking. Kowalski has his phone out at an angle that might be pointed at us, though I could be wrong about this.
"I will read it," I say. "And tell you what my thoughts."
"Please do," Marchetti says. "Please absolutely do."
He returns to his stall with a bounce in his step.
Thompson and Kowalski lean toward him and the three of them have a conversation in voices too low for me to hear.
Thompson's face is red. I don't understand what's happening, but the book is in my hand and someone has given me a thing to help with my English and that is kind.
That night in my apartment I make tea the way my grandmother makes it, strong and dark with too much sugar, and I sit on the couch and open the book.
The English is accessible. Short sentences, clear dialogue, words I mostly know and context clues for the ones I don't. The main character is a hockey player, a forward, and within the first chapter he's described his pre-game routine and his relationship with his teammates and I am comfortable in this world because it's my world, just in a different language.
But the hockey is wrong. Not terribly wrong, but wrong in ways I notice.
A power play formation that doesn't exist. A description of a slapshot that suggests the author has never seen one.
A penalty called for a play that isn't a penalty.
I think about Mueller and how he would react to these inaccuracies and almost text him, but I keep reading instead.
In chapter two there is a love interest. And chapter three there has tension.
By the end of chapter four, I have forgotten about the bad hockey because I need to know if these two people will figure out what is obvious to everyone around them, and I'm turning pages faster than my English should allow.
I text the rookie chat.
Marchetti gave me a book to help my English. It is about hockey players. There is also romance.
Davis
What kind of romance?
The kind where two people are clearly in love and refuse to admit it. Very frustrating.
Novák
Welcome to fiction.
Mueller
Is the hockey at least good?
No. It is terrible. All wrong.
Mueller
Then why are you reading it?
Because I need to know what happens, Mueller.
I put the phone down and pick the book back up.
Outside, Atlanta is doing whatever Atlanta does at eleven at night, which based on my limited experience involves heat and distant traffic and the hum of air conditioning that never stops.
Tomorrow, I will tell Marchetti I am on chapter five and watch his face do that pleased thing again.