35. Cole #2
He came.
Marco is absent. The seat beside Salvatore is empty. The brother who said until the next time stayed away. Or was kept away. I don't know which one it is.
Suzanne is on her feet again. She claps harder now, and my father stands beside her. Two families in the same section, the Maddoxes and the Vosses, separated by empty seats and six years of dinners, holidays, birthdays, and games.
Serena reaches across the gap and finds Suzanne's hand. Holds it. Two mothers clapping with their free hands while their joined hands bridge the seats between them.
Dante sees all of it. His jaw shifts. His chin lifts. His eyes are bright. Maya's hand tightens on mine between our chairs. Her eyes are full. She's facing forward, watching him walk off the stage.
The ceremony continues through the last of the alphabet. The provost says something about the future, and then caps fly. Four hundred polyester-clad bodies rise at once, arms up, the sky filling with navy squares.
Maya keeps her cap pinned to her head with one hand and grabs my arm with the other.
"That was a hundred-dollar deposit," she says.
"Romantic."
"Practical. Romance doesn't pay the deposit back."
? ? ?
The lawn after is chaos. Gowns come off.
Champagne appears from bags and backseats, corks popping across the quad, one ricocheting off a tree.
A mother screams her daughter's name across the lawn.
The campus photographer tries to organize a group shot near the fountain and loses control of the chaos in real time.
We find each other the way we always find each other, without planning, our bodies drifting toward the same corner of the same lawn.
Dante reaches us first this time. His gown is already off, and when he stops in front of me and Maya, his mouth softens. His shoulders drop half an inch.
"He came," Dante says.
"He came," I say.
"All he did was sit there. Through the whole ceremony. In a suit."
"That's something."
"That's everything." Dante's voice comes out rough. "From him, that's everything."
Maya's hand lands on Dante's arm. She just holds.
Gio reaches us next, his gown already off and draped over one arm. Genny is a step behind him, champagne in hand. His eyes are bright.
"You good, Cole?"
I open my mouth, and the old answer snaps into place before I can stop it. I'm great. I'm good. Beautiful day. Can you believe we made it? The words line up behind my teeth, smooth and ready.
I close my mouth.
For once, I make myself stand there with the question still inside me. The sun burns across my face. Maya is beside me. Dante is beside her. Across the lawn, Serena is coming toward us with her hand locked around Salvatore's arm, and I keep my mouth shut until the lie passes.
"I don't know," I say.
Gio looks at me. His head tilts.
"I'm happy. And I'm scared. And I'm sad. And I can't figure out which one is the biggest."
"All of them," Gio says. "All of them are the biggest. That's the thing."
He puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes once, heavy and warm. I stay quiet under it.
Serena reaches Dante and puts her hand on his face. She says something in Italian that makes his jaw tighten and his eyes close. Salvatore stands behind her, hands in his pockets, watching his son be held by his wife.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I glance at the screen, and the sun-hot lawn narrows to the name glowing there.
The Blackhawks front office.
A third text this week. Pre-draft combine details.
Interview scheduling. Hotel blocks, interview rooms, report times, September at the end of every line.
My father took the Georgetown news the way he takes everything, with one nod and a long pause before he said, "The mind for this works on ice too, Cole. "
Today, the scarf he's wearing says the rest.
Dante got the same text. The same team has them both circled.
Chicago. The two of us projected six picks apart, the Voss-Maddox line continuing onto NHL ice.
Maya's Tribune job is twelve miles from the United Center.
We mapped it last week on the couch while Dante calculated commute times and Maya said, “If either of you suggests I come to every home game, I will write an exposé about your defensive lapses.”
She'll come to every home game. We all know it.
Adrian crosses the lawn with Clara on his back. She's laughing, her arms locked around his neck, her heels hooked at his hips. Declan is already with us, standing near the edge of the group, and Adrian deposits her on the grass beside him.
"I just carried a woman across a graduation lawn," Adrian says. "In dress shoes."
"Your back is going to hate you tomorrow," Declan says.
"My back already hates me. Four years of hockey. The back and I are not on speaking terms."
Clara straightens her dress. "For the record, I didn't ask to be carried."
"You pointed at your shoes and said these weren't made for grass."
"That's a statement of fact, not a request for transport."
"The implication was clear."
"My implication was that the university should invest in paved pathways. You drew your own conclusions."
Talia appears beside Declan, carrying two glasses of champagne. She gives him one without asking, and he takes it without looking. The handoff is practiced and automatic, the glass passing into his grip before his eyes leave the group.
"My dad wants a photo of the team," Talia says. "All of you. By the fountain."
"Addison wants a photo?" Gio says. "Addison doesn't take photos. Addison actively avoids cameras."
"He asked," Talia says. "Twice."
The group moves toward the fountain. Addison is already there in his suit and crooked tie, with the posture he can't turn off even on a lawn in June. He's talking to a parent, but his eyes track the group as we approach.
Talia reaches him first and straightens his tie. Her hand stays on the fabric, adjusting. Addison lets her.
"You're hopeless," she says.
"I've been told."
"By me. Repeatedly."
"And yet the tie persists."
She drops her hand and steps back.
Genny is beside them, champagne in hand, her gown folded over her arm with the precision of someone who folds things for a reason.
"Coach," she says. "Congratulations on the season."
"Congratulations on graduating, Genny."
She asks him something about the incoming recruiting class. His answer runs half a second too long.
Genny's chin lifts. Addison's shoulders square to hers.
Talia glances over, then turns to Declan.
Genny looks down at her champagne. Amusement curves her mouth before she can hide it.
A parent approaches Addison with an outstretched hand, and the moment breaks. Addison turns to the parent. Genny looks down at her champagne. Her fingers slide along the stem of the glass. The sun is bright and the lawn is crowded.
"PHOTO," Zoe announces. "Everyone. Now. In front of the fountain. I am not asking."
She herds us into place. Adrian and Clara. Declan and Talia. Gio and Zoe. Genny. Maya, Dante, and me. Ten people on a patch of grass with the university behind us and the sun overhead, gowns draped over arms and caps held or lost or stabbed with bobby pins.
"Closer," Zoe says. "Genny, move left. Adrian, stop making that face. Declan, that counts as a smile, I'll allow it."
"This is my smile," Declan says.
"It's terrifying," Clara says.
"Thank you."
I'm between Maya and Dante, Maya's hand on my waist and Dante's arm across my shoulders. Their weight pins me in place for the flash.
"Lean in," Maya says to Dante. "You look like you're posing for a mugshot."
"This is how I take photos."
"Like a man being processed by the state?"
"A man with good posture."
"Same thing."
Zoe hands her phone to a passing parent. The photo is taken. More phones come out. Multiple angles. Zoe directs two more.
"One more," Gio says. "Everybody make a stupid face."
"Absolutely not," Dante says.
"D. One stupid face. For posterity."
"My face doesn't do stupid."
"I've seen your face do stupid," I say. "Three a.m. When you're half asleep and you walk into the doorframe because you forgot where the bathroom is."
"That happened once."
"It happened Tuesday."
Maya is laughing. Dante is fighting it. Gio is already making his stupid face, tongue out, eyes crossed, chin doubled.
The photo happens. The stupid-face version will be the one we keep.
The phones lower, and the group stays put, ten people standing in a cluster on a lawn in June. Nobody steps away yet.
Adrian looks around and counts us.
"Hell of a run," he says.
"Hell of a run," Declan says, low and heavy.
The cluster loosens as people drift and parents arrive. The lawn fills with noise.
Zoe pulls Gio toward the parking lot, saying something about a reservation and a time constraint while Gio protests that he hasn't finished his champagne.
Clara drags Adrian toward the alumni tent.
Declan and Talia walk off together, his hand on her wrist, her shoulder against his arm.
Genny waves once and disappears into the crowd, her gown folded over one arm and her champagne lifted clear of passing elbows.
Maya takes my hand, her fingers threading through mine and locking there. Dante's hand settles on the back of my neck, his thumb braced just below my hairline, and the crowd moves around us while the three of us stay rooted in the grass.
"Ready?" Maya says.
"For what?"
"Chicago. The rest of it. Everything."
Someone touches my arm. I turn.
Gio has jogged back from the parking lot. Zoe is visible behind him, arms crossed, one foot tapping.
"You good, Cole?"
The same question. The same two words. From twenty minutes ago on this same lawn.
My mouth stays closed for a beat. Then two. The answer has to cross the space without the smile I usually put in front of it.
"Yeah," I say. "I'm good."
Gio nods and jogs back to Zoe before she kills him.
Maya squeezes my hand. Dante's thumb presses once into the back of my neck.
We walk off the lawn together, Maya on one side and Dante on the other, into the rest of it.