Chapter 25 Luca
The text comes at four.
Thompson.
I don't argue. Arguing requires the broadcaster and the broadcaster has been offline since the storage room.
Since the floor and the breaking and the getting up and the driving home and the feeding of the cat.
I did not call it anything. Calling it something would make it real and if it is real then the rest of this has to be real too.
The restaurant has a patio with an awning that catches the last of the sun. Chips and salsa arrive before we sit down.
Thompson tries. "Columbus game. Fonty's second goal, the redirect off the far post. You see the angle he took?"
"I saw it," Marchetti says.
I nod.
The silence stretches across the table.
"Hájek, you ever been here?" Thompson says.
"No. I don't know this area."
"Virginia-Highlands. Good food. Good neighborhood. Berger should be rating every restaurant on this block but apparently we're retired from that."
"I'm not retired," I say.
"Then rate the salsa."
"It's fine," I say.
"It's fine. The man with the spreadsheet says fine." Thompson shakes his head. "Hájek, what do you think?"
"It's good salsa."
"At least one of you gave me an adjective." He orders for everyone, probably sensing no one else at the table was capable of making food decisions.
The food arrives quickly. I pick up a taco. I put it back on my plate. I pick it up again. I take a bite. The char on the al pastor is okay. The tortilla is hand-patted, but doesn’t have much flavor.
"All right. What's going on with you two?"
I look up and see Thompson staring at me. "Excuse me?"
"You." He points at me. "Haven't rated a restaurant in two weeks.
Haven't complained about the coffee since before break.
Haven't given anybody an unsolicited opinion since Tuesday, which might be a first in recorded history.
" The finger swings to Marchetti. "And you haven't said more than six words at a time since last week.
You didn't sing in the hallway once today. I counted."
"I don't sing in the hallway," Marchetti says.
"You absolutely sing in the hallway. Every day. Multiple times. You sang a Barenaked Ladies song on the Columbus road trip so loud Coach heard it from the front row."
Hájek nods. "Yes. I see this too. Both of you are different."
"I'm fine, Thompson." I am not doing this here.
"You're not fine. And he's not fine." Thompson looks between us. "I don't need to know what's going on. I'm not asking for details. I'm telling you that the two loudest guys in that building have been walking around like someone died and the rest of us can see it."
I stand up. The chair scrapes against the tile and the sound cuts through everything.
"This is bullshit."
I grab my jacket and leave the restaurant. The parking lot is warm. Late light flat across the pavement. I walk to my car. I get in. I sit with my hands on the wheel and the engine off and Thompson's words sitting in the car with me.
Like someone died. He was not wrong. He does not know how right he was and he will never know because I will never tell any of them. I wouldn’t have had to explain why I can’t eat if any of them knew about Wes.
The apartment opens onto dark. I don't turn on the light in the kitchen, just the one over the stove.
The mail is on the counter piling up since Aruba.
The dishes are in the sink not in the rack.
The suit from last week is on the bathroom floor.
The apartment is the shape of what happens when every system stops and the only one left is the one that feeds the cat.
Mouse is on the bed. She lifts her head. Her eyes are gold in the dark.
"Hey, Maus."
She meows. The short incessant one. Food.
I walk to the kitchen. The bag is in the cabinet. The food goes into the bowl. She jumps down and walks to it and eats with the focus of a creature who has never once questioned whether she deserves to be fed.
The bowl is full. The apartment is falling apart around it. Thompson is going to call tomorrow. Or Marchetti. Or both. They are going to ask again because they saw it tonight. I know they saw it.
I sit on the kitchen floor with my back against the cabinet.
Mouse finishes eating and walks to me and pushes her head into my hand.
My fingers find the spot behind her ear.
She purrs. The sound fills the dark kitchen.
Her bowl is full and the purring steady.
It is the only thing in this apartment that is still working the way it is supposed to.
***
I fell asleep on the bed at some point, still dressed, one shoe on. Mouse is on the pillow next to mine. Her eyes open when I move. Gold in the gray light.
"Hey, Maus."
She stretches. One paw extends, toes spread, then pulls back in.
I shower. The water is too hot and I let it stay too hot because adjusting it would require a decision and the decisions I am making today start and end with getting to the building. I brush my teeth. I put on clothes.
The book is on the counter. The hockey romance book I started reading with the book club.
It has been on the counter since before Aruba.
The paperback with the creased spine and the corner folded down on a page I stopped being able to read before Aruba.
I can’t read a love story when mine doesn’t feel much like one.
I have been carrying it in my bag and on my nightstand and in hotel room suitcases and never finishing it because it reminds me of what I don’t have.
I pick it up and put it in my bag. Mouse jumps down and walks to the kitchen. I fill her bowl. The food hits the ceramic. I pick up my bag and leave.
I pull into my parking spot and sit with the engine off. My hands on the wheel. The same posture as yesterday and the day before and every morning since the storage room.
I get out. I pull my bag from the backseat. I unzip the side pocket and take the book out. The cover is soft from handling. I hold it for a few seconds.
There is a trash can at the entrance. Gray. The kind with the swinging lid. I walk to it. I push the lid open with the edge of the book and drop it in. The lid swings shut and go inside to the locker room.
I sit and unzip my bag at my stall, pulling out my gear.
"Hey." Thompson. Standing at the edge of my stall. Arms crossed. Tape roll in one hand.
"Hey."
"You good?"
"I'm here."
"That's not what I asked."
"It's what I've got, Thompson."
He watches me. I can feel the calculation behind his face, whether to push or hold.
"I'm not going to apologize for last night," he says.
"I didn't ask you to."
"I know. I'm saying it anyway. I'm not going to apologize because I wasn't wrong. But I'm not going to come at you like that again."
"Good."
"I shouldn't have done it at dinner. In front of everyone. That part I'm sorry for."
"Fine."
"But I'm not sorry for what I said. I'm saying I see it. That's all. I see it and I'm not going to stop seeing it and I'm not going to pretend I don't."
I pull my skate onto my foot. The lace threads through the first three eyelets. My fingers know the pattern.
"You don't have to pretend anything, Thompson. I heard you. I'm here. That's what I can do today."
He stays for another beat. Then he goes back to his stall.
Marchetti comes through the door with his bag on his shoulder and his headphones around his neck, his hair still damp. He scans the room and finds me.
"Morning." He drops into his stall.
"Morning."
He starts unpacking. Skates, helmet, gloves. The order that is not an order, the anti-system that drives me insane on a good day.
"Did you eat last night?" he says. "After you left?"
"Yes."
"What'd you eat?"
"Marchetti."
"I'm asking because I'm hungry and I want restaurant intel. That's the only reason. Pure selfishness."
"I went home. I didn't eat out."
"You ate at home?"
"I fed the cat."
He stops unpacking. His hands go still on his shin guards. "Did you and the cat both eat? Or just the cat?."
"The cat ate. I was in the room. Close enough."
"That's not close enough." He opens his bag and pulls out a protein bar. “You need this now. I'm bringing you something from Piedmont after skate. Don't argue."
"I'm not arguing."
"Good. Because I wasn't asking. Pastry or sandwich?"
"I don't care."
He picks up a shin guard and goes back to unpacking. He lets a few beats pass before he starts again.
"Thompson called me last night," he says. "After you left."
"Yeah, I figured."
"He's worried. I'm worried too."
"I know."
"You don't have to tell me anything. I just want you to know I'm here."
"I know you're here."
"Okay."
"Okay."
He goes back to unpacking. I finish lacing. The phone is on the shelf, face down. The last message is Wes's. I don't know from when. I have stopped counting.
Morning skate runs clean. My legs work. My stick finds the puck. Hájek runs a drill on the left side with edges that get sharper every week. I put a pass on Fontenot's tape from the far circle because the lane is open and my hands know where the lane is.
"Good feed," Fontenot says on the way off the ice.
"The lane was open."
"It was a good feed, Berger. Take the compliment."
"The lane was open. You finished it. That's the whole transaction."
"When did you stop taking compliments?"
"I take compliments. I just don't take credit for geometry."
He looks at me the way people look at me now, the half-second longer than necessary, the scan they think I don't see. He nods and moves on.
Hájek is at his stall afterward, methodical, hanging each piece in sequence. He catches my eye as I pass.
"Good skate today," he says.
"Thanks, Hájek."
"Your pass to Fontenot. The timing was very precise."
"Yeah. The lane opened up."
"I know. I saw it. I was going to call for the puck but you had already released it."
"Next time call for it. You were open too."
He nods. He does not push. Hájek does not push. Hájek observes and files and says one sentence and lets the sentence sit.
"Are you staying for video review?" he says. "Coach said optional."
"No. Not today."
"Okay. See you tomorrow."
"See you tomorrow."
The room empties. Thompson stops at the door and looks back.
"Tomorrow, Berger. Same time."
"Same time."
He goes. Mueller leaves. Jensen and Davis walk out together.
Marchetti left a sandwich for me in my stall, and I put it in my bag to humor him. He lingers at his stall for a few extra seconds, his eyes cutting my direction once, and then he grabs his bag and goes.
I pick up my phone without looking at the screen. I walk past the entrance on my way to the lot and the trash can is where it was this morning. The book is under whatever has been thrown away since.
I get in my car. I sit with my hands on the wheel. Thompson sees it. Marchetti sees it. They see it and they don't know what it is and I can't tell them. I start the engine. I drive home.
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