Chapter 8 Luca
The hallway past the training room goes left where the treatment rooms are and right where the offices start.
I have walked this hallway a hundred times since September.
Strength room, video room, the nutritionist's door with the laminated food pyramid taped at eye level that someone has drawn a mustache on.
Today I go past all of them to the last door on the right.
The nameplate reads DR. ALAN PRYCE, TEAM PSYCHOLOGIST. Below it, a small printed sign: BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.
I have an appointment.
The waiting area is two chairs and a side table with a box of tissues and a small green plant that is either fake or receiving more care than anything else in this building.
I sit down. The chair is deliberately soft, the cushion shaped to make you settle.
I check my phone. The wallpaper lights up.
Blue water, white railing. I put it face down on my knee.
The office door opens. A man in his fifties, trim, glasses, a quarter-zip pullover that I would give a six-two for color choice. Muted olive. Safe. The shirt a therapist wears when he wants you to forget he is taking notes.
"Luca? Come on in."
The office is small and warm. Two chairs angled toward each other, a desk pushed against the wall, a window that faces the parking lot. No couch, which I appreciate. A framed diploma from Emory. A photograph of a dog on the desk, medium-sized, indeterminate breed.
I take the chair closest to the window. He sits across from me and opens a folder on his lap.
"So," he says. "Welcome. Thanks for coming in."
"Happy to be here."
"How's the transition been? You've been in Atlanta for about six weeks now."
"Good." I settle into the chair. My ankle crosses over my knee. "Really good. The team's been great. The facility is incredible. I came from Miami, but honestly the setup here is top-tier. The weight room alone is a solid eight-five."
"You rate the weight room?"
"I rate everything. It's a system. Ask Marchetti."
He smiles. "Tell me about the team. How are you fitting in?"
"Fast, actually. The expansion draft is a weird way to arrive somewhere, but there's an upside to it.
Nobody has history here. Nobody has seniority, well other than the vets.
We're all building the thing from scratch, which means the hierarchy is still forming, and that's kind of exciting.
I walked in on day one and by lunch I was arguing about barbecue with six guys I'd never met. That's a good sign."
"It sounds like the social side has been smooth."
"The social side is where I live. Give me a room and I will find a way to talk to everyone in it."
"And the hockey side?"
"Sharp. I feel good on the ice. The coaching staff has clear expectations. I'm getting minutes, which is what you want in a new situation. My release point is back where I want it. I had a stretch where it was off, but it's dialed in now."
He writes in the folder. I cannot see what. The pen is one of those roller-ball types that glide too smoothly. Three-point-nine for the pen.
"What about the adjustment off the ice? Moving to a new city, new place to live. How is that going?"
"Fine. The apartment is good. I found a neighborhood I like. There's a pour-over place on Piedmont that Marchetti turned me on to that's become part of the rotation."
"Sounds like you're settling in."
"I am. It's been a smooth transition."
The system wants to hear that the new player is adjusting, that the expansion draft was manageable, that the distance from his previous team is a chapter he has processed and filed and moved past. The system wants smooth because smooth means the system does not need to act.
"Let's talk about the trade for a second," he says. "How did you experience that? The expansion draft."
"Honestly, it was a shock. Nobody expected it. My agent didn't expect it. I had two good years in Miami but was third-line so didn’t really expect to be on anyone’s prospect list. When the call came, it was like, okay, new plan.
But that's hockey. You go where they send you and you make the most of it. "
"That's a big adjustment. Leaving a team and a place you'd been for two years."
"It is." I nod. I hold the nod for the right amount of time. "But I think the key is not to dwell on it. I had a great experience in Miami. I learned a lot. Met some good people. And now I'm here, and a chance to be part of something new. I'm choosing to see it as an opportunity."
"And when you think about what you left behind, what comes up for you?"
The question lands in my chest, in the place where the breath pulls tighter for a second before images run through my head.
The ceviche. The spreadsheet with the column labeled “Return?”.
The ocean through the balcony door. Hazel eyes.
The way the light hit his dark brown hair at six in the morning when he was still asleep.
The sound of his voice on the phone last week saying good night from an apartment I can see when I close my eyes.
"The food, mainly," I say. "Miami has incredible food. Cuban, Peruvian, seafood. I had a running list of restaurants. I'm rebuilding it here, but Atlanta is a different food city. The barbecue is better. The Cuban food is not close."
I think about the place I went to the other day where I ordered the Cubano, ate two bites and couldn’t stomach the rest. The low ambience rating influenced it.
His pen moves across the page.
"Any relationships you miss? Teammates, friends?"
"Sure. I had friends on the Tempest. There's always a bond when you spend two years with a group of guys. But I'm staying in touch with the people who matter and building new ones here. Marchetti and I have become close. Thompson. The whole group, really."
"That's great to hear."
"It's a good group. The guys care about each other. I can feel it already."
He sets the pen down on the folder. He looks at me with an expression that is neither skeptical nor concerned.
It is the expression of a professional who has conducted hundreds of these check-ins and is hearing exactly what a well-adjusted, high-functioning young player should sound like six weeks into a new situation.
"Is there anything else you want to talk about? Anything that's been on your mind?"
Through the window, the parking lot is half-full. My car is in the second row. I can see it from here, the dark shape against the gray asphalt. This morning I sat in it for four minutes before coming inside because the walk from the lot to the building felt longer than usual.
"No," I say. "I think I'm good. I'm really happy to be here. The team is great, the city is growing on me. I'm good."
"Well, my door is always open. These check-ins are part of what we do here. You can come by anytime."
"I appreciate that."
"Seriously. Any time."
"Thanks."
I stand. He stands. Another handshake, same calibration as the first. The diploma from Emory catches the light. The dog photograph watches from the desk. Six-point-one for the office. The plant saves it from a five-eight.
"Take care, Luca."
"You too, doc."
The door closes behind me. I walk toward the locker room.
My phone is in my pocket, screen against my thigh.
The broadcast is running. It has not stopped running since I opened his door.
It ran through every question and every answer and every smile I gave him, and he wrote things down in a folder and the things he wrote down are the things I showed him and the things I showed him are the version of me this building knows.
Marchetti is at his stall when I come through the locker room door. Music on his phone, something with brass.
"How was it?" he asks.
"Fine. Easy. He's a nice guy. Six-two for the quarter-zip."
"You rated his outfit?"
"I rated the color. Muted olive. Safe choice. Points for consistency with the office palette."
"You rated the office?"
"Six-one. The plant carries it."
"Of course there's a plant." He shakes his head. "What did he ask about?"
"The usual. How's the transition. How's the team. Do I miss Miami."
"What did you say?"
"I said I miss the ceviche."
"That tracks."
I sit at my stall. The tape is where I left it, two rolls, left of the gloves. The hangers are separated by type. The toiletry bag is at the right angle. Everything is where I put it because I put it there and I check it every time I come back to make sure nothing has moved.
"You good?" Marchetti says. He is not looking at me when he says it. He is looking at his phone, scrolling, the earbud back in. The question is casual.
"Yeah," I say. "Hey, what's the name of that pour-over place again? The one on Piedmont."
"Lighthouse. Tasha's there until four."
"I'm going after practice. You want anything?"
"Just a regular drip. Nothing fancy."
"Noted. Nothing fancy for the man who listens to trumpet accidents."
"It's not an accident. It's a genre."
I tape my stick. Two rolls, even pressure, the pattern I have been using since I was fourteen. The locker room fills with the sounds of the team arriving. Equipment bags, skate blades on rubber mats, someone laughing about last night.
The plant in Dr. Pryce's office is either fake or the most cared-for thing in the building and I did not ask which because asking would have meant staying in that chair for one more minute and one more minute in that chair was one more minute of being perfect and on and broadcasting that I couldn’t do.
I was in there for forty-five minutes and I told him everything a well-adjusted player tells a team psychologist six weeks into a new situation.
None of it was really wrong but also, none of it was really true.
Because the truest thing about me wasn’t in there.
Not that I am gay. Not the man I love. Not that the distance is hard.
None of that was in the room, because that version of me doesn’t exist in this building.
I open my phone and go to the spreadsheet.
The last entry is the barbecue place in Decatur from earlier this week.
My column is filled in. The column next to mine is empty.
It has been empty since September. Every restaurant I have walked into since I moved here sits in a row where half the data exists.
The averages calculate from one input instead of two.
The formula still works. The spreadsheet still runs.
It runs the way it always has, except the weighted average is mine alone now, and the Notes column has no one to argue with about the bread.
?