Chapter 13 Luca
The suit is on the hanger where I left it.
Navy. The one I bought in Miami at a store on Lincoln Road where the tailor pinned the cuffs while Wes sat in a leather chair behind me and watched.
The fabric has creased across the back and the left sleeve is bunched from where I dropped it on the bathroom floor and hung it without thinking.
The iron is under the sink. I know this because I put it there when I moved in, next to the steamer, next to the lint roller, next to the things that maintain the surface of a person who shows up pressed and correct.
I lie in bed. I think about the iron. I think about how easy it would be to get up and iron the jacket. Instead, I scroll on my phone. It's fine. Nobody is going to look that closely.
My phone is in the cup holder, face down, on my drive to the arena. The last text in the thread is still his from two nights ago. Glad you have those guys. And my short reply.
At the light on Piedmont I pick up the phone and call him.
Second ring. "Hey." His voice is low.
"Hey."
"You okay? I haven't heard from you."
"I'm fine. Busy couple of days. Practice, film, the usual."
"Yeah." A pause. I can hear the apartment behind his voice, can picture every inch of it. "You have a game tonight?"
"Seven o'clock."
"Who?"
"Columbus."
"You'll be fine. Their D is slow on the right side. Use it."
"I know their D is slow on the right side."
"I know you know. I'm saying it anyway."
The light changes. I pull through the intersection.
"How's your week?" I ask.
"Good. The win the other night was good. Off yesterday. Skated this morning."
"And now that I'm gone you decide to find the tape?"
He laughs. Short, easy. "Been saving it. Waiting for you to leave so I could finally play."
"That checks out. I was clearly the problem."
"Obviously."
The joke lands the way I built it to land.
Light. Two guys who can do this in their sleep.
His points-per-game since October is a number I have looked at on my phone more than once, and the number is higher than last season and the season before that, and the small quiet part of my brain has already analyzed it and it says he is playing the best hockey of his career in the first season I am not beside him.
I don't know what to do with that. So I make it a joke and the joke covers it and the covering is the whole point.
"How'd you feel on the ice?" I ask.
"Fine. Good." The careful word. The word he uses when the answer is longer than he is willing to give. “Luca, I'm sorry about the other night. The texts. I was being weird."
"You weren't being weird."
"I was. I saw the photo and I got in my head about it. That's not your problem."
"It's not a problem."
"Okay." His voice settles. "Okay. Good."
The facility parking lot appears off the highway. I signal, turn, pull in and park.
“You know the arena cat I was telling you about? He had kittens. Well, I guess it’s actually a she.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, they are cute. Small.” I think about the ratings I have started for the litter.
“What’s going to happen to them?”
“There are some guys on the team who want to adopt them. I started a point system for who gets first choice of adoption with rules and regulations I put together. I have a detailed spreadsheet for it.”
“Of course you do,” he laughs. “Are you going to adopt one?”
“I don’t know. It’s a couple months until they are ready to be adopted, so I have time.”
“I think you should.”
"Maybe,” I say. “I should go. Pre-game."
"Yeah. Good luck tonight."
"Thanks."
"Call me after?"
"Yeah. I'll call you after."
"Okay. Talk later. Love you."
"Love you."
I hang up. The screen goes dark. I sit in the car for a minute. The conversation was fine. Two people who talk every day, checking in. The thing that is wrong with this is that I am sitting in a parking lot in a wrinkled suit and I just told him I was fine.
I pick up my bag. I get out and walk in.
The locker room is already moving. Hájek is at his stall taping his stick with the concentration of a man who believes the pattern determines outcomes.
Jensen is two stalls over, scrolling through his phone.
Marchetti's music is playing from the speaker he brought last month.
Horns and a piano fighting for custody of the melody.
"Berger." Thompson is across the horseshoe, pulling a sweater over his head. His suit jacket is already on its hanger, pressed, the creases sharp. "Did you sleep in that?"
I look down at the suit. "I was busy," I say. "Didn't have time to press it."
"Busy doing what? You live alone."
"Busy being productive, Thompson. Some of us have processes. The suit is a temporary casualty of a larger initiative that is not yet ready for public review."
"So you were too busy to iron a suit."
"I'm telling you the suit is a temporary deviation from a standard that will be restored. Five-nine for my presentation this morning. Below average but within tolerance."
Marchetti leans around his stall divider. "You rated yourself?"
"For the suit. The rest of the package is carrying it."
"What point are you even making?" Thompson says.
"The point is that when you can put a number on a problem, the problem has boundaries. The suit has been numbered and noted. We can all move on."
"Yes, please let’s move on," Jensen says without looking up.
"Jensen, thank you."
Thompson shakes his head and laughs. Marchetti is watching me with his head tilted the way Marchetti watches things when his brain is working, but his mouth is smiling and the smile is what I need it to be.
Hájek glances up from his tape job. Mueller, arriving behind me, stops at the edge of the horseshoe.
"What's going on?" Mueller says.
"Berger slept in his suit," Thompson says and I let it go.
The room keeps filling. I sit at my stall. The tape is where I left it, two rolls, left of the gloves. Hangers separated by type. Toiletry bag at the right angle. Everything in the stall is where I put it because I check it every time.
Marchetti appears at the edge of my stall. "You good?"
"I'm good. Why?"
"No reason. You seem a quiet today."
"I'm conserving energy for the game."
"Right." He grins. "Okay."
"I'm good, Marchetti."
"I hear you." He pushes off the divider. "We're getting food after the game. Fonty found a Vietnamese place in Buckhead. He says the pho is legitimate."
"Legitimate is not a review. Legitimate is a legal term. I'll need to verify in person."
"So you're coming?"
"I'm coming."
He walks back to his stall. I pull my tape from the shelf. Two rolls. Even pressure. The pattern I have been using since I was fourteen.
Before warm-ups, I walk past the equipment closet to the bathroom at the end of the hall. The one nobody uses because the light buzzes and it’s further from everything. I push the door open.
The mirror is above the sink. The fluorescent tube flickers twice before holding.
I put my hands on the counter and I look at myself.
The suit. The left sleeve, the collar sitting wrong, the back bunched between my shoulders.
Three months ago I would have gone home and changed before anyone on this team saw me like this.
The guy in the mirror hasn’t shaved for three days. I didn’t choose to stop shaving. I just did not start again. The stubble is darker along the jaw, thinner under the chin.
I run the water. I wash my hands. I dry them and look at the mirror one more time.
The face is fine. Thompson will forget about the suit by the first period.
Marchetti asked once and I answered and the answer was enough.
Wes asked earlier and I told him I was fine.
Nobody is going to bring any of it up again because I was making them laugh and making him believe me and the laughing and the believing are the same work, people hearing what I gave them and not hearing what I didn't.
I straighten the collar. It does not help. I go back and the locker room is louder now. Pre-game volume. Marchetti catches my eye as I sit down and I give him a nod and he nods back.
I pick up my phone from the shelf. The screen lights. Blue water, white railing, palms. I put it face down on the bench.
?